


Richie and Eddie Break Up

by skeilig



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Arguing, Dirty Talk, Florida, Getting Back Together, M/M, Masturbation, Misery and Humor, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), breaking up, like they're miserable but in a funny way, terrible communication skills, the tags and summary make this sound so heavy so to be clear:, this is a comedy, wet dick Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24630130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeilig/pseuds/skeilig
Summary: One day Richie looks at Eddie and he thinks: Whoareyou?Or: The high of a new relationship wears off and Richie and Eddie realize it’s not that easy to fit together after twenty-seven years apart. They take a little more time to figure it out, with some help from their equally dysfunctional friends.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom & Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon & Eddie Kaspbrak
Comments: 147
Kudos: 278





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes the title is an homage to “Mac and Dennis Break Up” let me live.
> 
> (Rating for final chapter.)

One day Richie looks at Eddie and he thinks: Who _are_ you? 

It happens when Eddie comes home—back to Richie’s house—two hours earlier than he should and yells, “I quit!” as he stomps through the front door. 

He’s incandescent with rage, in a way that Richie is starting to find less cute and more exhausting. Richie rolls his eyes and looks up from his phone. “Already?” 

“Yes, already!” Eddie pauses in the hall, kicking his shoes off, and turns his gaze on Richie. “I don’t see why I have to be the only one around here fucking working.” 

“Yeah, you _don’t_ ,” Richie says. “You were the one who wanted to get this job, it was voluntary.”

“It’s not voluntary when we don’t have _any money_ , Richie.” Eddie makes a tense hand gesture, an aggressive little stab, and turns away from the living room to stalk into the kitchen. 

Richie drops his head against the back of the couch; he had been having such a nice day, too. He was even starting to get some writing ideas, a couple partial-phrases floating through his head. He hadn’t pulled up his notes app to jot them down yet, but he was getting close. And now Eddie is back—early—and bringing all this negative, judgmental energy with him. 

Richie calls after him, “Thanks for trying to provide for the family, but I think we’re gonna be fine, dude. But, you know, I’m so impressed that you kept this job for a week longer than the last one, you really stuck it to me. I’m, like, so lazy and pathetic.” 

Eddie’s laugh rings out, sharp, from the kitchen. It’s not a sincere laugh. “Yep, that’s… the goal of all this. To ‘stick it to you.’ It’s all about you, Richie, like always. It’s not about the fact that I actually need a job because I have to live and I have expenses…” 

Richie shifts down further on the couch so he’s lying flat. He’s losing the thread of this argument, and he’s completely lost the half-formed jokes he dreamed up earlier. Most of his energy is sapped, too. The day is officially shot. “Uh huh,” he mutters to himself, refreshing his Twitter timeline and hating himself. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

Eddie returns to the living room then, apparently content to come to the fight if it won’t come to him. He’s standing there, but Richie doesn’t look up at him, instead scrolling through the same tweets he saw a minute ago. “Richie, I just…” He sounds pretty calm, which is not necessarily a good sign. “I guess I wish you would’ve told me that you’re basically broke before you, like, encouraged me to tell my boss to go fuck himself. That was a really good job.”

“Which one?”

“The first one!” Eddie snaps. “Obviously the first one.”

Richie wants to say two things. First, that Eddie was pretty eager to quit that job, the insurance one in New York. He professed to hate it, and everything it stood for, and everything it made him become. So that night in Derry, after they killed the clown and stumbled back to the Townhouse and into Richie’s room, and after they sloppily jerked each other off, Eddie returned one of the missed calls from his boss, announced he was quitting, and launched into an expletive-laced tirade. 

When the line went dead, they laughed deliriously and kissed and groped each other. It was mid-morning then, and they hadn’t slept. With the full sun streaming in through the window, Eddie turned his face into Richie’s bare chest and murmured, “I love you,” for the first time, and then fell asleep. 

(When they woke up, hours later, after dark, Eddie called his wife to announce the end of their marriage. He smiled at Richie the whole time he was on the phone, which, in retrospect, may have been a little evil, probably a red flag, but at the time felt wildly sexy.)

So, Richie doesn’t feel he’d _encouraged_ Eddie to do anything he didn’t clearly want to do. 

Second, Richie doesn’t think ‘basically broke’ is a fair characterization of his financial situation. Two months ago, when Eddie asked him for some help with legal fees—he’d hired an expensive divorce attorney—Richie’d said, “Well, the thing is, asset-wise, I’m not super liquid right now… so…” And Eddie looked as if his life were rapidly flashing before his eyes. 

But Richie isn’t _broke_. He owns a very nice house that he’s almost completely paid off, and he has some debt but not much, but he has an accountant. If he has an accountant then he’s probably fine, right? He still gets some kickbacks from sitcom guest roles, but it’s not much compared to what he can make on tour. But he can’t exactly _go_ on tour whenever he needs the extra cash, especially not after his tour manager quit and he’s been banned from a couple venues for no-showing, and he doesn’t have any new material—not even that sentence fragment that came to him like a vision earlier, _thanks to Eddie_ —and coming out on Twitter didn’t garner enough sympathy to get things back on track. 

The coming out was Eddie’s fault, too. (Maybe that’s not entirely fair, but if Eddie can blame Richie for burning bridges at his cushy Wall Street job, then Richie can blame Eddie for an unsuccessful attempt at controlling the narrative.)

Eddie’s devious and poorly-thought-out plan was to insinuate that, because Richie wanted to come out of the closet, he’d been abandoned by his agent, tour manager, and blacklisted by the fine casino owners of Reno, Nevada. This claim was easily countered by the simple and true fact that Richie flaked out on an entire leg of his tour. And, as everyone involved made sure to tell him, they were offended by the accusation of bigotry. This humiliation was quickly followed by a lot of general nastiness and tomato-throwing, wherein all of Richie’s more questionable content and colleagues were unearthed. And, as the Twitter mob speculated, maybe _that’s_ why his staff fled, homosexuality notwithstanding. 

This, of course, was markedly ridiculous, as Richie tried to tweet (and tweet and tweet), since he _built his career_ upon this type of politically incorrect material. Everyone already knows that about him; it’s his brand. Why take issue with it now? As older videos emerged, the talking points shifted. That was just the state of comedy in the early 2000s. Everyone’s so fucking sensitive these days. Rinse and repeat. 

Inadvertently, Richie fed directly into the cancellation feedback loop, offered some smarmy, insincere apologies ( _I’m so fucking sorry I’m not the “right” kind of gay_ was among his worse impulsive moments), and it became clear pretty quickly that he was ruining his reputation by trying to save it. So he deactivated his account. Now, from some anonymous puppet account, he regularly searches his own name as an addictive self-harm ritual. 

The feelings are not far below the surface, so it’s the first thing he reaches for, now, when he wants to hurl something at Eddie: “If you were worried about money maybe you shouldn’t have let me ruin my career.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes with such commitment Richie’s surprised they don’t pop loose from the sockets. “Yeah, I guess you need someone to stop you from ruining your own career, dipshit.”

“Can you stop calling me ‘dipshit’ all the time? Like, Jesus. That should be off-limits when we’re fighting.” 

Eddie nearly shouts, “We’re not fighting!” 

“Yes we are!” Richie protests, his voice cracking as the pitch climbs higher. His eyebrows merge with his hairline. “Is this a normal fucking conversation to you?” 

“I don’t know!” Eddie snaps, defensive. He crosses his arms. “I don’t know what’s normal. This seems normal for us.” 

“Yeah, maybe, but that’s, like, not a good thing.” Richie sits up on the couch and _looks_ at Eddie, this man who he’s been sleeping with, who’s been living in his house and yelling at him about money and dirty dishes and everything else for three months. This man who he knew twenty-seven years ago, but, if he’s being honest with himself, who he’s only really known for three months. They’ve both grown so much from the kids they used to be. Did they take any time to figure out who they are now? Instead of saying anything about how he feels, Richie lobs the ball back into Eddie’s court. “Do you even like me? You don’t act like it sometimes.”

Eddie seems… stumped. Or taken aback. His hands are on his hips and his mouth is slightly open. He blinks. “Richie, I…”

The pit of Richie’s stomach drops out, so he laughs nervously. “That wasn’t supposed to be a hard question, man.”

Eddie shakes his head and waves his hands, resetting, before he sputters his answer, “Yes, of course I like you, I love you, I just… I didn’t… I don’t know.” 

Richie waits, growing incredulous as Eddie doesn’t finish the thought. “Okay, that was the opposite of reassuring.” 

“Well, I’m not– I feel a little caught off-guard, I guess. I didn’t know you were so upset about something–”

Richie scoffs and lies, “I’m not _upset_.”

“–because you never actually say how you feel, it’s just, like, layers of jokes and it’s like a minefield, which ones are just jokes and which ones are little hints to how Richie actually feels deep down but will never say?” As Eddie says this, he starts to half-heartedly pantomime walking through a minefield. Or, presumably that’s what he’s doing. Mostly he’s kicking his legs out in jerky, unsteady motions. Richie stares back, thoroughly unimpressed with the display. “It’s like when the whole thing with your manager and everything happened, you made it into a big joke. You never admitted that you were upset about it so there was nothing I could do to help.”

Richie asks, genuinely if a little aggressively, “What could _you_ have done to help?” 

And Eddie explodes. “ _Supported_ you! What do you mean, what could I have done? We could have _talked_ about it! Like we’re supposed to, you’re _supposed_ to lean on me!” 

Richie is still sitting on the couch with his feet up, and he’s proud of that, especially as Eddie gets more worked up. Richie seems relatively composed and nonchalant, at least in his posture. He says, “Okay, well, noted. I guess next time I’ll disregard the fact that all you do is yell at me and I’ll be sure to ‘lean on you’ for ‘support.’” The air quotes were probably a bit much, as Richie belatedly realizes. 

Eddie’s hands are on his temples and his eyes are closed. He shakes his head slowly. “I’m serious, Richie. I don’t see how we can do this much longer if you won’t talk to me.” 

“Okay. I’ll talk.” Richie claps his hands together, startling Eddie enough that his shoulders jump. He looks up warily. “Recently I’ve felt like… I don’t know who you are. And not even in a dramatic way, like ‘you’re not the man I knew,’ just very literally, we skipped the step where we actually got to know each other, as adults. Because– I had this— _idea_ —of how I felt about you when we were kids, and it was intense, but I was thirteen, for god’s sake. We’re totally different people now, but I got swept up in this whole thing, and you– you obviously just needed an enabler–”

Eddie’s eyebrows flip, back on guard right when he was beginning to slip. “Oh, right, yeah, you think I’m just using you.”

The thought has crossed his mind. Especially after Richie, foolishly believing he had been Eddie’s first time with a man, asked him as much, and Eddie admitted to having cheated on his wife. With no fewer than three men. Making Richie, technically, the fourth. 

Not that Richie really _wanted_ to be Eddie’s first gay time, at age forty. That was a weirdly intense expectation in the first place. And not that Richie’s _jealous_ … But…

He doesn’t work very hard to suppress the familiar flare of anger, remembering how special it felt when he thought he was the one to finally give Eddie what he’d always wanted, only to have that stupid, possessive fantasy ripped away later. (And the way it was revealed still makes his face burn when he remembers. It happened when Eddie went down on him for the first time (in Derry, directly after he got off the phone with Myra), and Richie had let out a surprised gasp and said, “Shit, you’re a natural.” Eddie had fully stopped sucking his dick to sit back on the bed and say, “What?” He wouldn’t drop it until Richie revealed his assumptions about Eddie, which he shot down without remorse. Eddie even laughed at him a little, like it was so absurd to imagine that Eddie ‘married to a woman’ Kaspbrak had never been with a man before. Richie wanted to disappear into the sewers forever.) 

“Aren’t you?” Richie says now, the words punching out from his chest. “I’m a convenient mid-life crisis. Someone to keep your bed warm while you figure out your shit. At first I thought, wow this is so romantic, he doesn’t want to even wait until he’s divorced. Now I know: big fucking red flag.”

Eddie snorts, derisive. “Rich, come on, like you weren’t ready to jump me at the earliest possibility, like, sticking your tongue down my throat when I’m still covered in sewage and have an open wound on my _face_.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just a huge slut, Eddie. What do you want me to say?”

“You’re impossible to talk to.” Eddie gestures at him, from head to toe, as if his physical appearance is indicative of his awful communication skills. “You need to stop shitting all over yourself if you want anyone else to take you seriously.” 

“Oh my _god_ , I’m fucking _joking_. I don’t think I’m actually a slut. I’m not the serial adulterer in this relationship.” 

Eddie looks very unamused, his eyes burning under his severely furrowed brow. “You’re doing this on purpose.” 

“Doing what?”

“Being an asshole.” 

Richie laughs without much humor. “Yeah, you caught me. Very observant.” 

“Your whole thing where you wind me up for fun, and make jokes at my expense and fuck with me– It might have worked to get my attention when we were kids but it’s not cute, Richie, okay? It’s exhausting, I don’t like being angry all the time.”

“Oh, don’t you? I never would’ve guessed.” 

Eddie throws his hands up, eyes wild, a perfect caricature of his angry self. “How are you still doing this?!” 

“How are you still falling for it?” 

Eddie retreats to the kitchen with a huff, and Richie, against his better instincts, hops up off the couch to follow him. Eddie starts aggressively unloading the dishwasher—which is an absurd and hilarious thing to do, involving a lot of clattering silverware—while Richie leans against the counter and keeps poking at him. 

“Kinda rich for you to accuse me–”

Eddie turns to put a bowl in the cupboard and slams the door with gusto. Richie powers through, his voice steady. 

“–of provoking you into anger or whatever, when you’re the one who came home itching for a fight. So don’t pull that shit with me.” 

For the first time since Eddie came home, some real emotion bleeds into Richie’s voice before he can stop it. Something more than the nasally sarcasm that obscures most of what he says when they fight. It’s a little bit of anger, but something wobbly and raw underneath it. 

Eddie must notice. He stops, hands on the counter, and looks up at Richie. His eyebrows are knit together. He swallows hard. “Richie, um.” 

Things have taken a turn. Eddie’s face is serious, his voice quiet, eyes downturned. Richie feels a burning in his nose that he harshly sniffs back. 

“I’m sorry. Shit.” Eddie brings his fist to his own mouth, stifling a shaky, wet breath. “Um.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Yeah, you’re right. I just… I haven’t been happy, I guess? Like, here. In L.A. I’m so isolated, I don’t know anyone but you, I don’t have a job or purpose, I don’t even know what I _want_ to do, I’m just floating, like– like an untethered astronaut–”

“Good metaphor,” Richie remarks charitably, as he scrubs at his own eyes under his glasses, blinking back tears.

“Thanks,” Eddie mutters. “I think we really rushed into this, Richie. And lately it feels like it’s all falling apart. There’s no… foundation.” 

Richie nods slowly. He thinks about when he saw Eddie at the Jade again, and he thought, _shit, this man is the great love of my life_. Maybe in reality Eddie was the great love of one summer when they were thirteen. In normal circumstances, it would have been insane to jump into a relationship with that guy after being back in each others’ lives for—what, thirty-six hours? The adrenaline high after their reunion and especially following the improbable fact of their survival carried them for a long time, but it’s wearing off hard now. If they never left the Townhouse Inn, if they’d stayed wrapped up in a warm bubble of sex forever, they might have lasted longer. But now Richie feels as if he’s tried to make the whole world that bubble, stretched it until it burst, and now he has nothing—no job, no other close friends—other than Eddie. 

Richie asks, “Eddie. Do you love me, really?”

Eddie doesn’t seem as surprised as he did when Richie asked _Do you like me?_ But he still takes a few long seconds to answer, mulling it over, before he finally says, “I… don’t know.”

Richie clicks his tongue. “That doesn’t seem great.”

“Yeah, it really doesn’t.” Eddie deflates. The air leaves the room and Richie’s shoulders slump. Eddie moves to lean against the counter across from Richie, arms crossed tight over his chest, one hand covering most of his face. “Shit. I’m sorry. This is really… this is really shitty.”

Richie shrugs. “I dunno. I’m kinda tired and I feel like I don’t remember why we’re even doing this.” 

“Okay. Um.” Eddie pauses. “What does that mean? Is that it? Do you want to break up?”

Richie sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly. “Yeah. I think so.” 

Eddie breathes steadily into his hands for another moment before he nods, pushes up from the counter, and leaves the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a few references to Stan’s suicide, Eddie has some less-than-sympathetic thoughts about the state of Mike’s mental health, and there’s gratuitous dunking-on-Florida, the punching bag of the United States.

Eddie knows rationally that he’s going to hate Florida. But there’s something about Mike’s beach-sunset photos that keep his rational mind at bay. He was planning on a visit, at first. A vacation, a week. But he’s also, technically, homeless after breaking up with Richie—so fucking stupid to leave the house to Myra and not get anything else for himself—so he’s hoping he can charm Mike into a longer stay. He’s gotta be lonely. 

Eddie had speculated about Mike with Richie. Over the past few months, he’d talked about everyone with Richie, making mean little comments back and forth, feeling guilty about it later. One day Eddie had said, “I think Mike’s upset because he thinks he killed Stan or something,” and Richie had said, “Didn’t he?” It was an awful thing to say, but a laugh was shocked out of Eddie regardless. He clamped down on it quickly and scolded Richie, said, “That’s not fucking funny,” and Richie got all wide-eyed and defensive and said, “I’m not making a joke, I’m just saying, like– Mike’s actions did lead directly to Stan’s death, and that’s like, legally, that’s like manslaughter or even murder in the first. Take it from me, an actual murderer.” Eddie stared at him, forcing his mouth into a straight line and said, “Stan killed himself.” And Richie shrugged, said, “Yeah,” and dropped it.

All of this runs through Eddie’s mind when he sees Mike again. He feels guilty and flighty, and his eyes keep shifting around when Mike gives him a hug. Mike seems nervous, manic, in the way he did at the Jade, before he told everyone the real reason he called them back to Derry. This is not reassuring. He’s loud, too, as he drives them from the airport to a seaside restaurant, rattling off a hard-to-follow train of updates about his new job (librarian at a community college) and his new coworkers and how he’s settling into his life here. 

Eddie doesn’t get a chance to say much and that’s fine by him. Mike’s car is a beige sedan with two hundred thousand miles on it, driven from Derry to Tampa, and it’s a mess. Eddie positions his feet around the junk on the floor and nods along as Mike tells him some random fun facts about Florida. Most of them are not necessarily fun, such as the growing prevalence of sinkholes. Eddie mutters, “Hell is opening up and trying to eat Florida,” and Mike laughs a little too loud. 

Soon they’re seated on plastic lawn furniture and looking at paper menus. The restaurant is more of a seaside shack, and everything smells like fish: fresh, dead, cooked. The whole spectrum of fish smells. The umbrella above their table is slightly off center, so Eddie has to lean into the shade. It’s late fall now and it’s not as hot as it could be, but it’s a lot hotter than Eddie’s used to. The sun feels closer this far south, boring into his scalp and his dark hair is hot to the touch when he pats it. He’s sweating under the collar of his polo shirt and his thighs are damp in his slacks. It’s too late to suggest eating indoors, so Eddie shifts his chair further into the sparse shade and squints at the menu. 

They end up ordering beers and shrimp po’ boys. While they wait for their food, Mike looks at Eddie and says, “So, the breakup was pretty amicable? Right?”

This is the first time any of the Losers have asked Eddie about the breakup. And Mike isn’t really asking him, just assuming that he’s fine and fishing for confirmation. Has Richie already gone around and told everybody that they’re fine? That’s kind of a dick move. Eddie’s the only one who gets to decide whether or not he’s fine. 

And he is. Fine. But he’d just like to be asked sometimes, you know? 

He’s resentful, too, of the fact that none of his friends—or Richie for that matter—really asked him how he felt about his divorce or his career change. Just because Eddie doesn’t complain all the time and beg for attention doesn’t mean he’s fine. It always bothered him, a bit, when other people did that, that cloyingly insecure thing, where they wax poetic about how shitty their own life is, how miserable and fucked-up they are. Eddie’s miserable and fucked-up too, and his life is shitty, too, but he doesn’t need to goad someone into offering sympathy. 

Preferably, someone would simply notice his quiet misery and ask him if he’s doing okay. And _then_ he could unload. Eddie wants his attention earned and freely offered, not begged for. 

Richie does some of that, the begging, but it’s always hidden under jokes, some more transparent than others. It started to drive him crazy, at the end. 

Now Eddie smiles a little and says to Mike, “Yeah, for sure, I mean, it was mutual, I think. But we’re taking a break. We decided it would be best to not talk for a while.”

“That makes sense,” Mike says, nodding and staring at his beer. “Still, that’s… rough, man.” 

Eddie shrugs, scoffs a little. “Yeah, it needed to happen, though. I feel good about it.” 

It’s only been a week but he does feel good about it. After their fight, they had a longer, calmer discussion and decided that yes, they’re definitely breaking up, but it might not be forever, they’ll just see how they feel about it in a couple months. Then Eddie spent a few nights sleeping in the guest room, packed up his shit, left most of it in Richie’s basement, and took off for Florida. 

“That’s good,” Mike says seriously. “There’s something in the water, I guess. Bev and Ben, you and Richie, now Bill…”

Eddie’s ears perk up at that. “What happened with Bill?”

“He’s getting divorced.” 

“Really?” Eddie asks, and Mike nods. “Shit. He never told me that. I mean, if he ever wants, like…” Eddie stops before he says ‘advice’ because, really, he’s more of an example of what not to do when it comes to divorce. “Well, he can talk to me, I guess. If he just wants to talk. Or Bev, I guess. We’re doing great on the divorce front. Three for three.” 

“He had a thing with Bev,” Mike says quietly, “So that’s probably out of the question.” 

“A thing?” Eddie repeats. “Wait, when?” 

“In Derry.”

“What? Like… Did they…” Eddie lowers his voice. “Did they sleep together?” 

“I think so, all Bill told me was he cheated on Audra so– presumably.” Mike shrugs and takes a big swig of beer, _ahh_ -ing after he swallows like he’s in a commercial. _Mm-mm, refreshing._

Mike is—now that Eddie thinks about it, and now that he’s no longer wearing Richie-goggles—really fucking hot. He’s wearing a light linen top, the buttons undone nearly to his breastbone, and sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He has a great smile, huge straight teeth, and his facial hair—grown out since he left Derry—is flecked with a couple wiry grays. One hand circles his bottle of beer, dwarfing it.

Eddie tears his eyes from Mike’s forearms and asks, “Why do you know all of this?” 

“We talk. He told me.”

“Hm.” Eddie spends the rest of dinner mildly grumpy about that. Over the past three months since Derry, he’s heard from his friends less and less, but apparently they’ve still been speaking among themselves. Eddie is nosy, and he hates secrets unless he’s in on them. And Bill getting divorced seems like pretty big news. 

When dinner wraps up later, Eddie is a little drunk and his clothes are completely damp from humidity and his own sweat. Mike picks up the bill and says to Eddie, “This is nice, to talk to you. Catch up.” 

Since Eddie has been stewing in resentment for well over an hour, he says, “It’s not like you couldn’t have reached out before. I have a phone, after all.”

“Eddie, come on,” Mike says, and now he seems annoyed. He throws a smile to the waiter when he comes to collect the check, but when he looks back to Eddie, his face is tense. “You and Richie weren’t really receptive to that kind of thing. It was– I dunno. Felt like you didn’t have time for anyone else.” 

“Well, I mean.” Eddie’s spine stiffens a bit, his face closed off as he gets defensive. “I had a lot going on, with the divorce and I’ve been trying to figure out a career change.” 

“We’ve all had a lot going on,” Mike says shortly. Then he abruptly stands up from the table. “Ready to go?” 

Eddie pauses for a moment before he gets to his feet. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” 

On the short drive to his apartment, Mike tries to set Eddie’s expectations again, as he had earlier, over the phone. “So, just an apology in advance. My place is pretty messy. I’m not totally unpacked yet. So, brace yourself.” He chuckles nervously as he adjusts his hands on the steering wheel.

“Is it better or worse than your car?” Eddie asks, looking at the discarded soda cans between the seats, the pieces of gum stuck to the dashboard, somehow still wet and melty from the sun. Mike’s car isn’t a disaster, but it’s just on the far side of normal-messy. 

“Uh, it’s…” Mike considers. “I think it’s worse than my car. Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Eddie assures him, prematurely. 

Clutter always sets Eddie on edge. His mom had been something of a hoarder, and it got worse as she aged. The memory of cleaning out her house after she died is one tinged with visceral disgust. But Eddie is confident he can handle Mike’s messiness. After all, Richie wasn’t very organized and he lived with him for three months. But Richie didn’t own a lot of possessions, actually; his house has kind of a sparse, minimalist thing going on. Whether that’s on purpose or not, Eddie never could quite tell. It might just have been that his house was big enough and he spent little enough time in it that everything stayed, mostly, in its place. Besides, Richie loved to re-wear clothes and re-use dishes. Messes accumulated slowly enough to be dealt with. Richie would use the same coffee mug for a week straight, rinsing between uses and only fully washing on Sundays. And he would wear the same t-shirt to bed for weeks before tossing it into the hamper—though he didn’t always sleep in pajamas, or he would end up discarding them halfway through the night. 

Eddie nearly slaps his own face. He’s thinking about Richie again, goddamn it. He shakes his head to snap himself out of it and looks out the window with determination. 

No more Richie thoughts. No more remembering the smell of his over-worn sleep t-shirts that Eddie would sometimes pick up from the floor and bury his face into, inhaling deeply, before he threw them into the laundry bin. 

Eddie slaps his own face. Just a little, but it’s enough to get Mike’s attention.

“Uh, Eddie?”

“Yeah? Sorry. Um. Nothing.” 

Mike gives him a sidelong glance. “O…kay.”

There was probably nothing Mike could have said to fully prepare Eddie for the state of his apartment. 

It’s a one-bedroom, located above a green-awninged corner grocery (PRODUCE - MEATS - DELI - BAKERY), and accessible via a rickety wooden staircase. Mike offers a few more nervous warnings and apologies as he leads the way up and unlocks the door. While Mike crosses the living room to turn on the window air conditioning unit—it sputters and whirs to life, cranking out stale air at first—Eddie stands frozen in the threshold.

The apartment is truly a disaster. The only furniture in the living room is the couch—where Eddie is meant to sleep while he’s staying here—but both the couch and the floor are obscured by boxes, some half-unpacked, the contents and bubble wrap and shreds of newspaper strewn around the floor, some still taped up. Eddie looks down at the floor directly in front of him and he’s not sure where to place his feet, or how Mike managed to navigate to the other side of the room. There’s a pile of tangled plastic and wire coat hangers, a couple used bowls sitting on top of boxes, spoons stuck inside them, glued together with dried, crusty food remnants, and a disassembled shelf propped against the wall.

“Holy shit, Mike,” Eddie says, quietly but with feeling. 

“I told you I haven’t unpacked,” Mike protests, holding his hands up. “I warned you.”

“Not adequately!” 

There’s nowhere for Eddie to even place his suitcase; he’s still holding it above the ground, his forearm tense. He doesn’t notice that his breath has become shallow and whistling until Mike is back at his side, easing the suitcase from his hands. Mike sets it down on top of some boxes that are ripped open, overflowing with wrinkled clothes. Eddie feels lightheaded. 

“Oh, shit, are you gonna have a panic attack?” 

Eddie doesn’t answer him. He just turns around and walks right back out the door. After taking a few unsteady steps down, he sinks to sit down on the stairs. Slowly he leans forward until his head is between his knees. He’s spiraling hard and, distantly, he’s aware that this is embarrassing, to have a breakdown like this in front of Mike, but that’s a worry for later. Besides, this is at least twice as embarrassing for Mike, he reasons, to have an apartment so messy that it causes his friend to have a breakdown. Yeah, Mike must feel pretty shitty right now. That thought calms Eddie enough to take a few deeper, gasping breaths. 

That, and the way Mike’s shadow eclipses him as he hovers above him, and the way he firmly pats his shoulder. “Deep breaths, Eddie.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie snaps, or tries to snap, but his voice is weak. 

“Do you have your inhaler?”

“No, I fucking burned it, what do you mean do I–” he runs out of air again, the words turning into a gasp. “You were _there_ , asshole,” he wheezes. 

“Oh, right,” Mike mutters. He sits down on the stairs behind Eddie, still rubbing his shoulders. It turns into more of a massage than comfort, but it feels good, Mike kneading the tense muscle between his shoulder and neck until it loosens. “Would you rather stay in a hotel?”

“No, I don’t have any money,” Eddie mutters miserably.

The massage stops. “What?”

“Okay, slight exaggeration, I probably have more money than you do, but by my usual standards, I’m fucking broke. This divorce is cleaning me out, and it’s been hard to get another job at the same level. I’ve been, like, driving Uber. It fucking sucks.” 

Mike’s hands left Eddie’s back entirely around the time he said he has more money than Mike does. That was probably a dick thing to say, but whatever, it’s true. 

“Eddie, um.” Mike clears his throat. “I’ve been having a really hard time since I left Derry.” 

Eddie scoffs. “Yeah, I got that idea from your apartment, man.” Then he says, more quietly, “Sorry.” 

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t expect us all to stay as close as we were before, but it’s just been really lonely. And I had this– this _purpose_ , for the past thirty years and now it’s gone and what am I left with? What do I have to show for it?”

Eddie resists the urge to roll his eyes. He could, Mike can’t see his face, but Eddie’s trying to be nicer. He’s a different person than he was ten seconds ago when he joked about Mike’s apartment being the physical manifestation of depression. But he’s still not very sympathetic to this from Mike. No one asked him to be a hero and stay in Derry, so he doesn’t get to guilt-trip anybody about that.

Eddie says, “Yeah, I know how you feel. What I thought my life was going to be got ripped out from under my feet and now I’m picking up the pieces.” Read between the lines: _you’re not the only one with problems, Mike._

Mike’s hand comes down heavy on Eddie’s shoulder again. “It means a lot to me that you’re here. And I hope we can be closer.”

Eddie twists around to face him, squinting into the setting sun. “We’re gonna get real close real soon because we’re gonna clean your apartment. Now.” 

While they work, they drink a few more beers and eventually they both lose their shirts because the A/C is not that effective, and Mike doesn’t turn it below 76 because he’s worried about the electrical bill. Although the sticky heat is dampening Eddie’s mood—not to mention the mess—he doesn’t mind hanging around a shirtless Mike, especially when there’s a sheen of sweat on the curve of his lower back and when his muscles flex every time he bends to pick up something. If only Richie could know that Eddie’s spending his time post-breakup homoerotically cleaning Mike’s apartment. He’d definitely be jealous. 

He’s not supposed to be thinking about Richie, though. Focus on Mike. Objectify him, whatever, it’s a harmless distraction. He’s really tall. (Taller than Richie.) Eddie wonders if he’d be down to fool around a little, even if he is straight. (That would make Richie _so_ jealous.) 

Goddamn it, did Richie ruin men for him? He can’t even be passively horny anymore without making it all about Richie. 

He works his way into the kitchen, to get away from Mike for a moment. And the kitchen is really a horror show, if the living room wasn’t bad enough. Every bit of counter space is full. There’s a microwave shoved in one corner, boxes of cereal heaped on top of it. Dirty dishes are piled in the sink, too high to even access the faucet without rearranging things. The stove is unusable, covered in stacks of dirty pots and pans, empty take-out containers that belong in the trash, and spilled pasta, broken bits of spaghetti trapped under the coils of the electric burners.

Eddie wants to scream. But when that moment passes, he only ends up thinking about Richie again because he’s overcome with the urge to snap a picture and send it to him. He can predict Richie’s response: _I guess we were right about the depression_. The thought heartens him a little even though he doesn’t really want to talk to Richie. He just wants to complain about Mike, and Richie is the only person who would indulge him in that.

While he mutters to himself, “Un-fucking-believable, can’t believe he lives like this,” Eddie begins to tackle the empty takeout containers, stuffing them into a garbage liner. 

By midnight, things are marginally better. When Mike came into the kitchen he asked Eddie where the take-out containers went, and Eddie said he threw them out, and Mike said he was going to wash them and reuse them, and Eddie experienced such an intense flash of rage that he almost passed out. The dishes will need to be washed in stages, soaked and scrubbed, but Eddie was able to get a few clean things put away. Mike managed to clear off the couch as well as a path through the living room. Eddie suspects he shoved a bunch of shit into the bedroom and shut the door, but he figures that’s beyond the scope of his responsibility. 

Eddie scrubs the bathroom sink until it’s clean of hair and dried-on toothpaste, brushes his teeth, and collapses onto the couch, too exhausted to worry about how lumpy and uncomfortable it is. He drifts to sleep wearing only his boxers and without a blanket, skin sticky.

In the morning, Eddie feels hungover, but he thinks it’s probably just due to the dehydration from sweating all night. That’s not a particularly comforting thought. Eddie slept in later than he usually does, thanks to the time change. He gets up and stumbles to the bathroom to pee, washes his hands using the tiniest flake of Irish Spring he’s ever seen, brushes his teeth—there’s a film of slime over his top teeth, and he scrubs at his tongue until he gags—and goes to find breakfast. 

He hoped that his banging around in the bathroom would have woken Mike—it’s well after seven—but to no avail. So he bangs around in the kitchen, which is less effective since it’s farther from his bedroom. Luckily the coffeemaker is one of the only kitchen items both unpacked and accessible. He discards yesterday’s cold, damp grounds into the trash, rinses the basket, and replaces it with a fresh filter and a few scoops. He checks the water tank, sniffs it, and decides it’s clean enough. The carafe is scorched on the bottom, but he rinses it. While the coffee’s brewing, he searches for something to eat and settles on dry cereal. (He doesn’t trust any of the quarter-full jugs of milk in the fridge.) He manages to find a clean bowl and mug, but he has to wash a spoon for himself. 

Mike ends up sleeping until ten. Eddie figures it’s the depression. He really wants to text Richie. In the three hours Eddie has to himself, he takes a shower—the tub is slow to drain, murky water building up around his feet—shaves, gets dressed, turns the A/C down to 72, takes care of the dishes that were soaking overnight and puts the next batch into rotation, and drinks nearly the entire pot of coffee himself. 

By 9:50 and after eight cups of coffee, Eddie is so jittery he can feel each of the individual hairs on his body. He’s way too aware of his fingernails. And his toenails. Ugh.

Instead of ripping out his fingernails, he barges into Mike’s room. 

“Come on, man, rise and shine, it’s like–”

At that moment, Eddie learns that Mike sleeps naked. He’s sprawled out on his stomach, the sheets twisted around his legs, but they don’t cover his bare ass. It’s toned and tight, the skin a shade or two lighter than the rest of his body.

Mike lifts his head and gives him a bleary-eyed look. 

“Shit, sorry,” Eddie mutters, closing the door as he retreats back to the kitchen to finish the last cup of coffee. 

He _really_ wants to text Richie. Richie would think this is hilarious. 

But he doesn’t text him, of course. 

Eddie hears the toilet flush then Mike wanders into the kitchen. He seems either unaware of or unbothered by the fact that Eddie saw his ass five minutes ago. He’s wearing only blue plaid boxers. He nods a greeting and leans against the counter, adjusting when his hip nudges a pile of dishes too close to the edge. 

“I just drank the rest of the coffee,” Eddie tells him.

“How long have you been up?”

“Three hours.” 

Mike frowns. “You could’ve woke me.” 

“I don’t know how late you sleep.” Eddie turns back to the coffeemaker to get it ready for round two. 

“This place looks pretty good.” Mike nudges a box of books that sits on the floor. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Not done yet,” Eddie says. “Today we’re going to finish unpacking and then we’re going to buy you some furniture.” 

Mike’s face falls. 

Over the next couple days—Mike has taken some time off work to spend with his guest—Eddie makes good on his promise. They finish unpacking and take the boxes to the recycling dumpster behind the building; they tackle the backlog of dishes and stay on top of new ones; they go to IKEA and buy a kitchen table and a bookshelf and assemble both. It no longer looks like a college dorm shared by five dysfunctional boys. Now Mike’s apartment looks like it’s inhabited by two semi-functional single adult men. There aren’t any homey touches yet; no rugs or throw pillows or pictures on the wall. A lot of Mike’s weird decorations haven’t been unboxed yet, simply shoved into the closet. But he made a point of finding his box turtle shell and placing it on the shelf among his collection of dusty, well-loved books.

Mike insists that they have fun, too. One day, he dragged Eddie kicking and screaming to the beach. It was fine, but Eddie got kind of freaked out about how warm the water was (“It’s like bathwater, it’s disgusting.”), and about potential run-ins with sea creatures (Mike reassured him, “I don’t think anything can really live in the Gulf. Except, like, jellyfish.” “Is that true?” “Yeah, I think so.”). So, Eddie ended up staying on the beach, safe from the jellies and letting the waves wash over his feet, while Mike attempted to bodysurf. 

Later that evening, after they grab a bite to eat out and head back home, Mike goes to the bathroom first to clean up. When he emerges, rubbing a towel against his ear and looking at his phone, he says, “Oh, Richie called me. I’m gonna… call him back.” 

Then he looks up at Eddie, all wide dark eyes, as if asking for permission. 

“Uh, okay,” Eddie says shortly. “I’m gonna take a shower.” 

He retreats to the bathroom and closes the door before Mike gets on the call, but he can still hear his loud greeting, “Hi, Richie!” and subsequent boom of laughter. As if the first thing Richie said was truly that hilarious. He grits his teeth and starts the water. He gets in while it’s still cold, shivering with relief as he backs into the stream, and scrubs the sunscreen and sweat from his skin. 

The water heats up a little, but he keeps it just below what he would consider warm. Just enough that it refreshes him. The shower itself is sort of grimy and unpleasant, and it’s not helped by the grit of sand on the bottom of the tub. (How did Mike manage to track this much sand home? Where was he keeping it?) There’s a shower curtain on either side of the tub, and they billow in toward him, clinging to his legs. The ceiling above is flaking, disintegrating from too much humidity. 

And he can still hear Mike on the phone with Richie, over the sound of the water and through the wall in between them. 

Despite his frustration with—everything—or maybe because of it, Eddie realizes he’s a little turned on. He’s not hard or anything, but his senses are sharp, acute, and his skin feels tight and sensitive. He hasn’t jerked off in a few days, not since he arrived at Mike’s place. So, whatever. He grabs his dick and approaches this dispassionately, a bodily need, an itch to scratch. 

A few minutes later and he’s still barely hard. There’s no real arousal, no bloom of heat, and he almost stops, but damn it, he’s made it this far. He can _still_ hear Mike laughing, and each time it freshly annoys him. Richie isn’t even that funny. He has the same few tricks that he uses over and over and once you get used to it, it wears thin fast. 

Eddie shakes out his wrist and recommits, trying to dream up a fantasy to distract him. But his mind, the traitor, conjures up Richie, kneeling before him, hair and eyelashes heavy with water, lapping at Eddie’s cock. God, he really doesn’t want to jerk off to a Richie fantasy, but it’s the first thing that makes his thighs tremble, his dick twitch. So he rolls with it, too frustrated to practice self-discipline, and hoping to get this out of his system. 

But the fantasy morphs, then, takes on some additional context. Maybe this shower blowjob happens after Richie shows up on Mike’s doorstep, having traveled to Tampa just to see Eddie, to apologize for… apologize for… Eddie considers his ideal Richie apology. It would be pouring rain and he’d be standing in it without an umbrella or raincoat, arms crossed, soaked to his bones. The specifics hardly matter in the end, but Richie would say, “I’m sorry, you were right, I need you.” And Eddie would say, “God, Richie, _I’m_ sorry, get inside, you’re soaking wet,” and pull him through the door. Richie would be shivering and pathetic, maybe even crying— _God, why is Eddie into that?_ —and Eddie would kiss his cold, wet lips and pull him into the bathroom to warm him up. And after they get into the hot shower together, that’s when Richie would sink to his knees, staring up at Eddie, reverent and desperate to make it up to him… 

Eddie grunts when he comes, pulsing into his fist. It’s only a few short waves of pleasure, tearing through his body, and then it’s over. He feels worse than he did before because jerking off to his ex is a terrible idea. But if he insists on jerking off to his ex, he could at least do himself a favor and conjure up a less emotionally loaded fantasy than them _getting back together._ Jesus, Eddie.

The water has backed up above his ankles now and the basin of the tub is still gritty with sand below his feet. He turns off the water and watches as a few bubbles escape from the drain, bursting through the murky, soap-sudsy, sunscreen-filmed water. He shudders and steps out of the tub, disgusted with himself and with this shitty bathroom and with Florida and with the whole world.

When he emerges to the living room, damp-haired and dressed in shorts and an Under Armour tank top, Mike is reclined on the couch, smiling wide as he listens intently to Richie. 

Eddie lingers for a moment before he makes a quick gesture to Mike, pointing toward the door. “I’m going out,” he whispers. Mike nods and waves him off.

Eddie goes on a quick jog. The night is cooling off, slightly, and he doesn’t want to run hard enough to have to shower again—besides, he’s not in good condition since he hasn’t run since Derry—but he wants to run hard enough to clear his head. 

With every pound of his feet on the pavement he thinks: _Do I miss Richie? Do I miss him for legitimate reasons? Or is it just the safety, the security? Change is scary. He made all of that change a lot easier. And I am grateful for that. But I also made some really stupid fucking decisions when I was with him. And I’m still paying for all of that. And it was me as much as it was him. Or it was what I’m like when I’m around him. That was the real problem. Obsession isn’t love._

_And, Jesus, Eddie, it hasn’t been long at all, like two weeks. Just relax. You shouldn’t even be thinking about him._

When Eddie trudges up the stairs to Mike’s apartment, he’s too sweaty and will probably have to rinse off again before bed. As soon as he opens the door, Mike looks up from the couch. He’s off the phone now, but still holding it in his hands.

“Why’d you go for a run _after_ you showered?” 

Eddie shrugs as he bends to take off his shoes and peel off his socks. “I dunno. I’m stupid.” He stretches with one foot against the wall, leaning into it, then the other. “Um, that was Richie?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “That’s such a Richie thing to do. To call you when he knows I’m here and talk to you for like, an hour and a half. I’m sorry, Mike.” 

Mike’s eyes track his movement as he crosses the room into the kitchen to get water. He calls after him, “Or maybe he called me because he wanted to talk? To me? And maybe it’s not about you, Eddie? If you can believe that.” 

Eddie fills up a glass at the sink and drains it before he fills it again and returns to the living room. “Nice theory, but how often did he call you before? I lived with him. Phone calls with Mike weren’t a big part of his life.” 

“And visiting Mike in Florida wasn’t a big part of _your_ life before but I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that this is an actual gesture of friendship and not some kind of–” Mike waves his hands vaguely. “I dunno. I hope this isn’t actually about Richie.”

“It’s not,” Eddie says firmly. Then, “Did he ask about me?” 

Mike gives him a withering look. “No.” He’s still sprawled across the couch, leaving nowhere for Eddie to sit so he stands awkwardly in front of him, glass of water in his hands. “Look, Eddie, if you’re planning to stay for much longer–”

Eddie speaks over him, “I don’t _have_ to stay–”

“–I could use some financial help at least–”

“–If you don’t want me here, you just had to say something–”

“–but I don’t mind.”

They both stare blinking at each other, processing what the other said. Then Eddie says, “Wait, are you suggesting we become roommates?” 

“Uh, more like, you treat this as an AirBnB?” 

Eddie nods rapidly. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

So Eddie stays for a while. And it goes well at first. Mike gets back to work at the community college and Eddie starts searching for jobs. _Online_ , not in Tampa. God, no. He focuses on jobs in New York, figures he knows the scene. He has connections there, a least a couple bridges he hasn’t burned. He cleans up his LinkedIn profile and updates his resume. He swallows his pride and makes some phone calls only to discover he has fewer unburned bridges than he initially thought. 

He changes the location of his job search to Los Angeles and stares wistfully for a while. 

Which is fucking stupid, because he’s job-searched to hell and back in L.A. And it’s fucking stupid because he hated L.A., he hated driving there and the traffic, he hated Richie’s dumb house in the hills. Well. Okay, the house was nice. He doesn’t have to lie to himself about the house. The weather was nice too. Warm, but not swampy-hot. Always perfectly dry. 

But it would be insane to move back to L.A. after breaking up with Richie, so… he doesn’t do more than stare wistfully. 

Mike is a decent roommate. Eddie doesn’t get a lot of space from him when he’s home since he doesn’t have a bedroom of his own, but Mike is pretty quiet and thoughtful. They start watching a documentary series together about the 2008 financial crisis. Mike seems to think that Eddie was personally responsible, judging from the questions he asks.

One Friday night, two weeks into Eddie’s stay, they end up at a bar on the beach, sitting on the patio under twinkle lights as the sun sets. Eddie snaps a few photos of the setting sun and posts the best one to Instagram, hoping Richie will see it. Oh, he should post something to his story that way he’ll be sure. He takes a photo of Mike with their drinks in the foreground and adds it to his story. The trap is set. 

Eddie puts his phone facedown on the table and tries to focus on other things. Like Mike. Mike looks really good in his tan chinos and boat shoes. No socks, so his bare ankles are on full display. Eddie hopes that other people at the bar will think the two of them are together. He could use the ego boost. 

Mike asks, “How’s the job search going?” 

“Fine,” Eddie answers. “I’ll try to get some interviews set up next week.” 

“Where? Back in New York?” 

“Yeah, probably.” 

“Leaving so soon?” 

“Well, maybe.” Eddie shrugs, noncommittal. He could be convinced to stay longer. He could be convinced to do just about anything. “I dunno.” 

“Have you heard from Bev recently?” 

Eddie nods, following the jump in the conversation: New York, Beverly. “Sort of. A few weeks ago. She’s still staying with that friend of hers.” 

“Too bad about her and Ben.” 

“Yeah, well. Maybe Losers aren’t supposed to fuck other Losers. It never ends well.” 

Mike laughs. “We have a weirdly incestuous friend group.” 

Eddie snorts and says, “Yeah, you want in on that?” He immediately winces but Mike only laughs again. Okay, so, that’s probably not happening. Eddie will stop hitting on him now. This isn’t his usual M.O., anyway. Who does he think he is, Richie?

When they start their second round, things are looser and livelier. Mike raises his glass and proposes a toast: “To wasting the best years of our lives!” 

“Fuck, cheers, man.” Eddie takes a few gulps of his gin and tonic. “You know, fuck these insurance jobs. We should go into business together.” 

Mike quirks an eyebrow. “What would we do?” 

“Run a bed and breakfast?” Eddie suggests. “Or an… auto repair shop? A bed and breakfast slash auto repair shop? Will you marry me for tax benefits?” 

So much for not hitting on his friends anymore. 

Mike snorts. “Is that how you proposed to your wife?” 

Eddie tips his head back, laughing sincerely. “Harsh. I like it.”

Eddie does genuinely enjoy being teased, is the thing. Of course he does; he was in a relationship with Richie Tozier, and he knew what he was getting himself into. So, no, Eddie doesn’t mind when people are a little mean to him, because he trusts that. It feels like honesty, getting a nice, sharp barb now and then, and it lets him trust the nicer things. He knows they’re not trying to manipulate him.

And, yeah, that’s definitely due to his baggage from his mom and his ex-wife, who only ever _said_ nice things to him. And yet…

Hm. Eddie really doesn’t want to think about that. Not tonight. He turns over his phone to distract himself and checks his Instagram story again. Richie hasn’t looked at it yet. 

When they start their third round, things take a somber turn, but it’s Mike’s doing. 

He says, “I want to reach out to her sometimes,” and quickly elaborates: “Patty. Stan’s wife. Widow.” 

Eddie blinks and adjusts his grip on his glass. It’s slippery with condensation, clammy in the palm of his hand. Most of his ice has melted. “Oh shit. What would you say?” 

“Well that’s just it. I mean, she knows we exist… or does she? I’m not sure if she saw the letters. Bev called her but… I don’t remember if she even gave her name. We really should have reached out to her sooner.” 

The patio has filled up in the two hours they’ve been here. They’re surrounded by young bodies, a persistent buzz of noise. It all seems to fade away. 

“And done what?” Eddie asks quietly. “Said what? I mean, Mike, there is nothing that we can say to her, nothing to explain it. We would probably have just made it worse.” 

“Okay, well, I’m glad you’ve made your peace with it, but we never even fucking talked about it. Not really. Everyone skipped town so fast and went back to their lives, and I…” He trails off, staring at his drink with wide eyes. His fingers twitch around the glass. 

So Eddie was right on the money about the unresolved Stan-related guilt. 

And Eddie feels _bad_ about Stan, sure he does, but he hasn’t really stopped to let himself grieve. It scares him to dwell on it, so he keeps moving. His letter must have ended up at his house in New York—Myra never said anything about it, and he never asked her—but he read Richie’s copy. It made him feel… terrible. It wasn’t catharsis, it wasn’t the pain of healing, it was a fresh wound ripped open. He tries not to think about it. 

Now, Eddie frowns and reaches to pat Mike’s forearm. “Hey, man. I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it now?”

“Not really.”

Eddie gives him a couple more awkward pats before he withdraws his hand. “Do you feel like you grew up more than us?”

“I don’t know.” Mike’s jaw is tense. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in this line of questioning. “I guess I don’t really know what it was like for you guys to leave.”

“Sometimes I feel like I never grew up,” Eddie says. “It’s just like, two halves of my life, split. I was a kid, and then I was an adult. And going back to Derry, I just.” He snaps his fingers. “A kid again. And the way I was with Richie, I was _so_ immature. I feel like– you remember when we were kids?”

“Unfortunately.”

“We regress. That’s exactly it: we _regress_. It’s probably super unhealthy. And I don’t like feeling like that. It’s like I’m out of control. I just say or do the first thing that comes to my mind. And he’s– I mean, he loves fucking with me. He’ll do anything to wind me up.”

“You wind each other up.”

“Yeah!” Eddie exclaims, slamming his palm down on the table between them. “That’s exactly it. It’s this feedback loop. We make each other _insane_. Which is really fun sometimes, when we’re on the same page, but it’s like– I think we just gain momentum and we _go go go_ and neither of us knows how to stop it.” When Eddie pauses long enough to take a drink, he realizes: “Oh, goddamn it, I’m talking about Richie so much. Sorry. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone, okay? Fuck, that’s embarrassing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike mutters, waving a dismissive hand. “Your secret’s safe with me.” 

By the end of the night, Eddie is really drunk. When walking back to the car, he says, “Your ankles are sexy,” to Mike, who laughs and says, “Oh yeah?” Eddie doesn’t remember saying this until he wakes up the next morning, terribly hungover. He cringes in embarrassment for a moment before he laughs to himself and turns his face into the pillow to chase the darkness for a little longer. 

There are a few more nice days before the cozy little bubble bursts. It happens like this: Eddie is going to take out the trash. It’s practically overflowing because Mike isn’t great about taking it out, and Eddie was planning to see how far he could push it before one of them cracked. Turns out, not that far. So, plan B, Eddie is going to take out the trash while Mike is home and be loud and passive-aggressive about it. 

So, he goes into the kitchen, flips on the light, and—in his peripheral vision—sees a few dark things on the floor as they scatter toward the edges of the room. And he can hear them, horribly, their hard-shelled bodies clicking and scratching on the tile floor. 

Eddie jumps back, banging his hip into the edge of the counter, and yells, “Mike! What the fuck!” 

In a second, Mike pops up behind him, his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. He says, “What—? Oh, fuck, they’re back.”

“ _Back?!_ You didn’t tell me you had a cockroach infestation, _Mike!_ I’ve been living here! I’ve been sleeping here! On the couch!” 

“Everybody has cockroaches in Florida,” Mike says, infuriatingly calm. “Maybe the cleaning stirred them up?”

“Oh, so it’s _my_ fault! Great!” 

“Look, I’ll… get a shoe.” Mike turns away and comes back with a beat-up sneaker and starts whacking. 

Eddie stands in the threshold of the kitchen, flinching at every sickening _crunch_. His skin feels itchy all over, phantom little legs crawling on him. The cockroaches themselves are terrible, long flat things, much larger than the ones he’s seen in northern climates, and most of them have already retreated from view. Lying in wait. Biding their time.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Eddie says plaintively. “I hate it here. I’m going lose my mind, for real, and, like, murder-suicide us. It’ll be really tragic.”

That seems to trigger something. Mike gives up the hunt, dropping his abused Adidas sneaker to the floor, and stands up straight. “ _I_ hate it here!” he snaps. “I’m fucking miserable! I wanted to live here when I was thirteen, but I didn’t know _shit_ when I was thirteen!”

Eddie throws his hands up. “Then leave! Mike! Oh my god! Don’t do things that make you miserable! Jesus _Christ_ , you’re so fucking stubborn!”

Mike begins to say, “I’m not–” but Eddie talks over him. 

“First you stay in Derry for thirty years when no one fucking asked you to and you develop a huge fucking martyr complex, and now you’re insisting on staying here even though you hate it. And _why?_ You can go anywhere you want, do anything you want! Why is it so hard to just be happy?”

“I don’t know how to be happy! Obviously!”

“Neither do I! Obviously!”

They stare at each other, wild-eyed and chests heaving, for a beat of silence.

Then Mike laughs. It breaks through almost violently at first, as the tension snaps; his face erupts into wrinkles, his breath in short huffs. Then Eddie laughs. It bubbles up, unbidden, his shoulders shaking. They laugh until they’re delirious and hoarse. Eddie folds in on himself, tears in his eyes. For a moment he’s worried he’s going to actually cry. 

Mike lifts his head, shoulders still shaking with the aftershocks of laughter, to meet Eddie’s gaze. He wipes his eyes and asks, “You really think I have a martyr complex?” 

“Yeah, man, it’s insufferable. But I know that I have, like…” Eddie waves his hand vaguely. “Problems… too.” 

Mike snorts. “Uh, yeah, you’re a control freak hypochondriac with anger issues.” 

“Right,” Eddie says, chuckling. “Thanks for spelling that out.” He looks around the kitchen, his eyes tracking the floor. No cockroaches in sight anymore, which is the opposite of reassuring. “We’re staying in a hotel tonight. My treat.” 

“How romantic,” Mike deadpans, causing Eddie to laugh again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben lives in upstate NY in this fic because plot. Sorry, the midwest. Warnings for: Ben being an alcoholic and Richie not noticing (self-centered king); an instance of drunk driving; Richie being a jerk in general, including one movie-canon-typical jab about Ben’s weight loss; one or two very vague references to intimate-partner abuse concerning Bev. 
> 
> Oh, btw, subtitle for this fic is: Fit Hot Guys Have Problems, Too

A week after Eddie left for Florida, Richie succumbs to his restless loneliness. First, he calls up Bill, who blows him off—divorce drama or something—and Bev isn’t an option—same reason—so he settles for Ben. “Hey, Benjamin!” he crows when Ben answers the phone. “What’s good, man?” 

After a pause Ben says, in an unenthused voice, “Hey, Richie. Do you need something?”

The last time Richie really talked to Ben was a week after Derry. Ben called him in a state of near panic because he’d been trying to get in contact with Bev after she returned to New York, and hadn’t heard from her in days. Apparently, Richie and Eddie weren’t the only ones who got carried away in the wake of clown murder. While Eddie was in Richie’s room, Bev was in Ben’s, and _I love you_ ’s were exchanged in both instances. But then, as Ben revealed, she went back to New York to tie up loose ends, refused Ben’s offer to accompany her, and then stopped responding to his texts. He was understandably worried, given the history with her husband. 

But the thing was, Eddie had received a text from Bev just that morning, and Richie the day prior, assuring them that she was fine and staying with a friend in a hotel. (Well, the text sent to Eddie was a status update. The text that Bev sent Richie was her harsh-but-fair review of his Netflix standup special from 2013.)

So Richie told Ben as much, and he was relieved to hear she was safe, but then the focus of his concern shifted. Because that meant Bev was ghosting _him_ in particular. 

Richie, who always had a bit of a problem with sympathy and tact, especially when he was blinded by the temptation of a joke, snickered and said, “I guess she’s not that into you, dude.” 

And later on, he realized that that had been a cruel thing to say—Ben got off the call rather quickly after that—and when he recounted the conversation to Eddie, Eddie laughed and said, “You’re such a dick.” But with fondness. So, Richie hadn’t thought about it since. 

Now, hearing Ben’s tired tone, and realizing they hadn’t talked in a while, Richie flushes with shame. It’s alternating hot and cold pin-pricks over every inch of skin. And, god, does he hate feeling like that. So, he blurts out, “Hey, I’m fucking sorry about the last time we talked, the thing with Bev. I feel like a dick. No hard feelings?”

On the other end of the line, Ben’s sigh is tense. It’s almost motherly, disapproving but resigned to it; it’s the sigh that Richie heard countless times in college and after when he called home and said he’d have to miss a visit home, a holiday, a birthday, for some underpaid (or unpaid) comedy gig. 

“Yeah,” Ben finally says. “No hard feelings.” 

“Great!” Richie says cheerily. “So how’s life?”

Half an hour of pleasantries later and Richie has talked himself into a week-long ‘writing retreat’ at Ben’s place in the Catskills. 

Ben picks him up from the airport in a huge red Chevy truck. Richie’s not sure what he pictured Ben driving, but after a moment of gleeful surprise, it makes perfect sense to him. While the truck idles, Ben hops out and helps Richie toss his suitcase in the back. They share a quick greeting hug before Ben jogs back around to the driver side to vacate the pick-up/drop-off zone. 

As they begin to drive, Richie fiddles with the radio and with the adjustments of his seat and with the rearview mirror until Ben tells him to stop it. “Sorry,” Richie mutters, not feeling very sorry. He tilts the mirror back toward Ben, until Ben reaches to intervene, returning it to its previous angle. “When I’m in a new environment, I have to touch everything in order to feel comfortable. I’m like a dog sniffing around.” Richie stretches out the sash of his seatbelt, lets it snap back against his chest, and then rolls the window down and back up. Then down again, just a crack, enough for the wind to whistle through. “So, how far is it back to your place?” 

“About ninety minutes,” Ben answers.

Richie snaps his head toward him. “Seriously? Holy shit.” He reclines his seat, dropping all the way back with a thud. “I’ll settle in, then. Why do you live way the fuck out here, anyway?” 

“I have an apartment in the city, too, but I like the quiet. I work remotely when I can.” 

“This where you bury your bodies?” Richie asks, smirking and working his eyebrows. “You have your murder apartment in the city that you line with tarps like in fucking _American Psycho_ , then you throw ‘em in your truck and drive out to the– Wait, actually, you know, _Eddie_ told me that he used to have an apartment in Manhattan, too. Like, in addition to his house in the burbs. And he _definitely_ killed some people. Like, gleefully. I can just picture it.” Richie raises his arms before swinging an imaginary axe down, grinning like a madman. But his attempt at physical comedy isn’t all that effective on an audience who’s keeping his eyes trained steadfastly on the road ahead. Ben humors him with a pitiful chuckle; Richie frowns, realizing it’s been, oh, two minutes and he’s already mentioned Eddie by name. So, he slips out of his shoes and throws his socked feet up on the dashboard and says, “It would be pretty wild if more than one of us had killed somebody with an axe, huh? We could make a club. Axe murderers anonymous?”

Now Ben does glance over to him, eyes darting to his face then his feet before training them back on the windshield. “Are you gonna be like this when we get to my place, too? Do I need to leave you alone for a while so you can jump on all the furniture and snoop through my drawers?”

“What’re you keeping in your drawers?” Richie asks, fiddling with the lock on the passenger side door now, clicking it down then pulling it back up. “Don’t answer that, I’ll find out. I like a mystery.” 

Ben’s fancy architect house sits in a clearing in the woods, at the end of a long, winding gravel drive. The leaves are turning orange and crisp and the afternoon sun slants through the clouds overhead. The house is long and boxy, rising from the hill and built partially into the slope of the earth. The walls on all sides are glass, floor to ceiling. 

“Whoa,” Richie breathes, in a bit of genuine awe as they approach. “You designed this?” Ben answers in the affirmative while Richie grapples for the sole piece of architecture knowledge he possesses. “Frank Lloyd Wright influenced?” 

Ben purses his lips, considering, which turns out to be generous, because his answer is a simple: “No.” He stops the car, then, in its slow crawl, and leans forward, gesturing to the house. “The lines work against the landscape, rather than with it. Do you see that? It’s more about contrast than harmony.” 

“Oh, sure,” Richie says with a laugh. “Thanks, professor Hanscom. I pulled that out of my ass, by the way, since that’s literally the only architect I know… Except for you, I guess. The house is sexy, though.”

Ben snorts. “Thanks.”

After they pull into the garage, Ben carries Richie’s suitcase inside, which is very silly and chivalrous, but Richie isn’t about to complain. As soon as the door is open, from the garage to the basement, they’re greeted by a large German Shepherd, curiously sniffing at their legs, tail wagging. 

“This is Shadow,” Ben says, reaching to scratch behind his ears with one hand, still holding Richie’s suitcase with the other. 

Richie drops to his knees in front of the door, carding his hands through the coarse, dark fur. “Hey, buddy.” Shadow pants, flat pink tongue curled out of his mouth; he nudges into the palm of Richie’s hand, his nose wet and cold. “Oh, good boy, yeah, I like you.” Richie cups the dog’s face in his hands and bends to kiss his forehead. “Yes, I love you,” he assures the dog, while Ben chuckles.

“Moving kinda fast there, Richie? Already at ‘I love you’?” 

“You’re my best friend,” Richie tells Shadow, burying his face into the thicker fur around his neck. “You’re my only friend.” 

Ben laughs a little. “I’m starting to think you came here only for my dog.” 

“And you would be correct.” Richie hops back to his feet. “Onward? Give me the tour.” 

While Shadow follows—shadows them, if you will—Ben leads Richie up the stairs and onto the main floor of the house. It’s long and narrow, a bedroom and bathroom on either end, kitchen, living room and office in the middle. Everything is modern and sleek, perfectly staged and not very lived-in. There’s an eclectic array of art, little statues sitting on end tables among some carefully displayed books, and paintings and photographs hung on the walls. 

Richie settles into the spare bedroom. The king-size bed is crisply made and adorned with a couple throw pillows. The wall opposite the bed is entirely glass; Richie draws the curtain to gaze out onto the clearing. There’s a patio, table and chairs, a grill. A fire pit and a neatly stacked pile of wood. From there, the hill slopes down into wildness; tall grass and brush and finally the forest. 

Ben hovers in the doorway, arms crossed, smiling self-consciously. Richie launches himself backward to land on the bed. He crosses his arms behind his head and sighs, staring out at the view. “Okay, this is nice. I feel like I’m at rehab.” 

Later, they go on a hike. Shadow can’t come with them because dogs aren’t allowed on the hiking trails, and this news nearly ruins Richie’s entire day. But he tries to keep his spirits up for Ben. Ben seems like he needs this. He has hiking boots and a neatly organized backpack. Richie has running shoes that he has never once used to run, so he changes into those, says a long and dramatic goodbye to Shadow, and then climbs back into Ben’s car to drive to the trailhead, a couple miles away. 

The last time Richie went hiking, he was probably still living in Maine. His parents used to take him to Acadia every summer of his childhood, and he would either trudge down the trails behind them, complaining about his boredom, or sprint ahead of them, yapping excitedly about whatever was on his mind. Then they moved to Chicago, and he went to school there and stayed until his early thirties; for a long time, outdoorsy hobbies weren’t something he considered. While traveling the country on tour, he’s more of a roadside-diner, weird-museum type of tourist. 

All this to say, Richie is envisioning a walk. And it’s not exactly that. It’s uphill, entirely for the first half, over uneven terrain. His Nike running shoes have no ankle support, and that becomes a problem. After an hour, Richie stops to strip off the windbreaker Ben lent him, and finds his gray t-shirt underneath soaked with sweat around the pits and collar. The damp cotton clings to the small of his back. Richie taps Ben’s shoulder, nonverbally coaxing him to turn around, so he can stuff the jacket into his backpack. Then he guzzles from one of the water bottles, letting some trickle down his chin and neck. 

“Ah.” Richie screws the cap back on and nestles it into the bag again. He slaps Ben’s shoulder, as if he’s a trusty pack animal. “How much farther?”

Ben begins to move again, continuing along the trail in front of Richie. “The lookout point’s in two miles.”

Richie doesn’t know if that’s far or not; he doesn’t know how far they’ve already hiked, or how long they’ve been out here. “If we get lost and we have to recycle our piss… Um.” He pauses for a moment to stretch out the side-ache building under his ribcage. He lets out his breath in a heavy rush. “I don’t know where I was going with that.” 

“I think you just wanted to mention drinking piss.” 

“Yeah, exactly, you get me,” Richie says, as he continues to trudge along. “I wonder how long we could pee back and forth before it became, like. Toxic or whatever.” 

Ben stops in front of Richie, hands on his hips as he looks toward the sky. He sighs deeply. 

Richie laughs. “Oh, shit, you’re gonna murder me. That’s what this is. You’re leading me to my own grave.” 

“You know, Richie,” Ben says as he starts walking again. “Part of hiking safety, in areas where there are bears, is to make noise to keep them away. Some people use bells—I do that when I’m alone—or else you can just… talk… a lot.” 

Richie laughs so loudly it echoes through the hills. A couple birds flee their perch in a nearby tree. “I’m keeping you safe from bears by being annoying! By being un- _bear_ -able! Shit, that’s pretty good. Aren’t you glad I’m here?” 

“I am, actually. Glad you’re here.” 

Ben says it quietly and sincerely, and there’s something about that that hits Richie like a punch to the gut. It knocks the breath out of him, leaving him speechless. He quietly follows Ben for a minute, eyes fixed on the uneven terrain, as he picks his way over it. 

After a while Ben stops and turns around, looking concerned. “Did I… Was that weird? You’re quiet.” 

“No, uh.” Richie shakes his head. “Not weird. Sorry. I’m being weird. Thanks for letting me come annoy you for a week. You’re a cool dude, Haystack.” 

Ben nods, chewing on his bottom lip. “Yeah, sure, Richie.”

The lookout point is somewhat anticlimactic, but Richie doesn’t voice his disappointment. There’s a jagged, rocky cliff facing a sloping valley and a sea of treetops. The light is nice, and the autumn leaves form a gradient from deep green to yellow to burnt orange; Richie snaps a few photos on his cell phone, including a couple half-coerced selfies with Ben. 

He goes to post the two best ones on Instagram, only to notice there’s absolutely no service out here. 

“Are you sure you’re not trying to kill me?” he asks Ben as he tiptoes toward the edge of the cliff, tempting him. He leans forward, letting his arms cartwheel through the air. “It’d be easy. This is your best shot.” 

The sun is low in the sky by the time they return to the house, and Richie’s stomach is growling, despite the two granola bars he snarfed down on the hike back. This means that Richie is extra annoying while Ben makes dinner: sirloin steak and a medley of vegetables, cooked on the outdoor grill. Richie hovers at Ben’s elbow, tipping back the beer that’s supposed to tide him over, and snatching bits of mushroom to snack on, burning his fingers each time. 

Ben’s liquor supply is mostly beer—a wide variety of craft brews, leaning on the hoppy side—along with a selection of really good bourbon. Earlier, while he rooted around in the fridge and cupboard, Richie’d said, “If you want to keep the pounds off you should probably lay off the IPAs and try, like, gin. Or vodka? I dunno. Clear liquids. Eddie went for that shit. You know, he drinks gin and prune juice?” He shuddered. “That cleans you right out.” 

Ben had grimaced and said, “Well, I try to stick to lower alcohol content these days.” 

“Oh, that’s very responsible,” Richie told him, slapping his back. “Good man. This is embarrassing because of my bad boy rep, as you well know, but I actually can’t drink that much anymore. I’m one-and-done most nights. But I used to put back a six-pack by myself no problem when I was eighteen, nineteen, you know. Made me big and strong.”

Richie, as a rule, doesn’t really think when he says things. And he doesn’t really listen when he’s told things. Ben got a little quiet during this conversation, but he’s quiet a lot of the time, so Richie didn’t notice. 

Now, Ben closes the lid on the grill and takes a swig of his own beer. Shadow sits in the grass beside the patio, staring off toward the woods, alert, ears twitching. It’s a little chilly outside, cooling off more as the sun fades below the horizon, but there’s a plume of heat from the gas grill, and Ben’s going to build a fire later. For now, they take a seat at the wrought-iron table.

Ben asks, “So, how are you doing?” 

Richie’s never done well with that question. “Not great, Ben,” he answers with a blustery tone. “I fucked up my career, don’t know if you saw that?”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Ben confirms with a little grimace. His eyebrows knit together, furrowed severely above his wide, earnest eyes. “Richie Tozier Is Over Party?”

“Yep,” Richie says with a laugh. “Look, I’ve done a lot of dumb shit in my life. It’s like– this isn’t even the worst of it. And, you know, the thing is: Sure there are people who hate me. Of course there are. That’s the territory. The worst part is that I kinda fucked up my relationship with some industry people. _But_ I’m mostly very nice and pleasant to work with, believe it or not, and I have a lot of support, so this is gonna blow over. I just… I think I needed a little bit of a breather anyway, so. It was good timing, actually.” 

Nothing Richie said is strictly _false_. The hubbub on Twitter was loud and annoying, but it also burnt out quickly. The worst part truly is his damaged-beyond-repair relationship with his former manager. And whatever shit _he’s_ surely been talking. But the vast majority of Richie’s industry friends and colleagues reached out to him at some point in the past months to say hi, and to laugh at him a little for being branded a homophobic gay the second he stepped out of the closet. Richie fucking Tozier, am I right? 

And yeah, Richie had a little bit of a meltdown, but it really only lasted a couple hours until he stopped fighting (until Eddie wrestled his phone from his hands) and decided to take an indefinite break from social media.

But he could probably leverage all of this, is the thing. He could get on some talk shows and make fun of himself for botching his coming out this badly. And then, maybe, eventually, another tour, some television work, something. 

The meltdown must be what Ben’s referring to when he asks, “Were you… Um. I was wondering if you were on drugs at the time?”

Richie laughs, sincerely, because it’s the last thing he expected to hear. “What drugs specifically?”

Ben fidgets, picking at the paper label of his beer bottle. “Um. I don’t know. It seemed like really erratic behavior.”

“Yeah, that was… just me, actually. Sober Richie, voluntarily fucking up his career. Under absolutely no duress. Although, the whole, uh, _implicating my manager_ thing was Eddie’s idea, so maybe you should take this up with him.” Richie pauses just long enough to take another sip of his beer while Ben watches him, frowning. He’s always frowning. “Hey, here’s something. Maybe I should say I _was_ on drugs. Can you check me into rehab tomorrow? We might save this thing yet. This is a _way_ better scheme than Eddie’s. Imagine the sympathy points. Tragic self-hating gay Richie Tozier treated for addiction. What do you think plays best, coke? Or is that overdone? A little too corporate? Too _Wolf of Wall Street_?”

Richie’s actually never had much of a drug habit, at least not any of the glamorous ones. He smoked cigarettes for a long time—only quit a few years ago—and he’s ambivalent about weed—he’ll smoke if it’s offered to him—and he drinks slightly too much for a responsible adult, but not nearly enough for a single male comedian. But Richie has plenty of other vices, and a deep-seated fear of himself. Chipping away at his protective armor with substances is a great way to let _himself_ out, so he tries not to do it. 

Ben just chuckles a little, before his face grows serious and he asks, “How are you doing with the breakup?”

“Oh,” Richie says, feigning surprise. He is, actually, a little surprised, which is stupid. As if he didn’t just mention Eddie twice in under a minute. He pouts his lips, as if really thinking, then shrugs decisively. “Good. I’m doing fine.”

After dinner, they’re each three beers deep, and that’s when Ben builds a fire and breaks out the whiskey. Richie tries to go toe-to-toe with him for a while, keeping pace as the night gets later and later. The fire starts hot and bright, crackling and shooting sparks, until it settles into slow-smoldering embers. They scoot their chairs closer to chase the warmth; Shadow lays on the ground behind Ben, tail flopping lazily. 

Ben can hold his liquor really well, apparently. “Holy shit,” Richie mutters, next time he refills. He downs the rest of his glass in a few harsh swallows and offers his empty to Ben. “Another.” 

“You don’t have to keep up with me,” Ben says with a little smile. He refills Richie’s glass anyway. 

“I do, I must,” Richie insists, working his numb lips to form the words. 

The next time Richie is fully aware of his surroundings, Ben is leaning forward, elbows on his knees and stoking the fire with a stick, stirring up a couple sparks. “I wish I’d kept it sometimes,” he says quietly. “The yearbook page. I wish I didn’t have to burn it. If that was all I’ll ever get to have.”

Richie can feel his brain trudge through the words, making sense of them. When it clicks, he groans, dropping his head back. “Oh my god, dude, you are such a downer.” 

Ben keeps poking at the fire, jabbing the stick into the glowing, cracked skin of a log. A shower of sparks bursts up with a _pop_ , and Richie flinches away, swearing as he brushes them off his jeans. 

“It made it worse to be with her, I think,” Ben says. “I really let myself believe, for a second…”

Richie doesn’t bother to suppress the tired sigh that escapes him. “Sorry, but– okay, Ben, Ben.” Richie leans over the fire to snap his fingers in Ben’s face. Ben blinks a few times and bats his hand away. “If I may speak from experience… I think you and I were in similar situations, right? Reconnecting with our childhood crushes after nearly thirty years? And, look, with me and Eddie, it went down a little bit different. We actually tried to be together. But it didn’t fucking work, and I think we’re worse off for it. Like, call it a total loss for us, you’re now ahead of where I am by three months, _and_ you have a nice memory of Bev that’s not tainted by a failed relationship and, like, loads of bitterness and resentment.” 

There’s a long beat of silence after Richie stops speaking. His ears ring. Shadow lifts his head, staring off into the distant dark, maybe hearing something their human ears can’t, and then settles down again. 

Finally Ben says, “I think it’s tainted by the fact that she won’t even talk to me anymore, but…” He stirs up a few more sparks, absently poking at the burning logs. “Thanks, Richie.” 

It sounds bitter, but– hey, that’s something. A reaction. That’s all Richie really wants at the end of the day. 

“Did you know when I was a kid,” Richie begins, staring into the fire, mesmerized by the licking flames, “I carved our initials into the kissing bridge?” 

“You and me?” 

“No, dude,” Richie says, barking a laugh. “What? No. Me and Eddie.” 

“Oh.” Ben keeps stirring the coals, light flickering on his face. “That makes more sense.” 

“Yeah, it was this, like, weird dramatic expression of love or whatever. I was such a fucking loser. I thought I was _in love_. I was thirteen!” 

“Things can feel pretty intense at that age.” 

“Yeah, the hormones,” Richie agrees. “But things can feel pretty intense at forty, too, is what I’m learning. And I don’t know what that’s worth. Just _feeling_. What is that? I don’t know if that means anything, in the end.”

Quietly, Ben says, “I think it’s the only thing that means anything.”

Richie snorts. “Okay, January embers.”

This time when Ben jabs his stick into the fire and showers Richie in sparks, Richie is certain it’s a purposeful attack. 

The bottle of bourbon is half empty when Richie finds himself standing up, pacing the patio, and performing a fake standup set for his audience of one. Well, one and a dog. 

Richie says, “So, uh, my ex–” and Ben already cheers. Richie nods, flashing a grin. “My ex, he dated and broke up with me all before his divorce was even finalized. My longest and most serious relationship was fully eclipsed by one of his.” 

He throws his head back laughing, but Ben doesn’t return the laughter. It seems to echo hollowly in his chest, and it feels a bit unsteady, dangerous. Richie stops laughing, swallowing it down. There’s a lump in his throat. The alcohol has made him raw and sharp. 

“I didn’t tell him that, that it was my longest relationship,” Richie says. “It was his rebound, I guess? I dunno. I get that a lot, as you can probably imagine. I’m the type of person, that, like– Okay. I’ve put some thought into this.” Richie shakes out his hands and begins again. “I’m the type of person that people seem to really, _really_ like– at first. You know? I’ve had a lot of intense friendships. People tend to latch onto me, and they like me enough to make their significant others jealous—literally, it’s a pattern—but they _don’t_ like me enough to actually date me. So that’s, like… that’s a _fun_ thing.” 

“This isn’t very funny, Richie,” Ben calls from where he’s slumped in his seat. He cups one hand around his mouth. “Boo.” 

“Hey, don’t be mean to me,” Richie says, pointing at him. “I’m baring my soul up here.” He paces a little more, fiddling with his imaginary microphone. “I used to do open mics. And there’s something… I dunno, _nice_ about spilling your dysfunction on stage and having a roomful of people laugh, because the laugh, it usually sounds like: _Me too. I understand. I’ve been there, too_. But there is something about always paying attention to your own dysfunction and then packaging it for relatable comedy. I spent a long time, and I still do this, anything bad happens to me, I fuck up, my first thought is: material. Before anything else, I’m like, oh this is good material. Is it fucked up to see your own suffering as comedy?”

Eventually the fire fades to a pile of glowing white coals, and Richie sits down again, slumped in his chair. The bourbon bottle is emptier than before, but Richie hasn’t touched it for at least an hour. He feels shitty already, like a waking hangover, his mouth dry and gross and head foggy. 

“I’m gonna go pass out,” he tells Ben, who nods, and gets up to follow him in. 

They both stumble a little as they cross the threshold. Ben laughs and catches Richie’s elbow, mumbling, “Watch it.” 

After Richie settles into bed, and before he passes out, he takes out his phone, momentarily blinding himself with the light. He manages to dim the screen, and then searches for himself on Twitter. His stomach always swoops when he does it, excitement or dread, always nausea. His hands begin to shake. He scrolls through, sorted by most recent, his eyes scanning, well-practiced at picking through for anything interesting. The more he does this, the more demoralized he becomes because the worst part is: there’s not much anymore. The internet cycle moves at the speed of light, they had their fun with Richie, and then they threw him out. 

There’s still that article that details the exact timeline of the Richie Tozier incident, in case anyone late to the party saw it in trending and was confused. First, Richie’s tweet: ’I’m gay. I don’t know what this means for my career, especially considering my manager and writing team don’t want to work with me anymore, but I need to be honest,’ and the initial outpouring of support for him—before his former employees began firing back. 

Once Richie has scrolled past all the usual white noise—people who are apparently way out of the loop, innocuously tweeting about his Netflix specials, as if they don’t know that being a fan is out of vogue—he eventually finds _something_ worth his time. 

_richie tozier in high school when he forgot his homework: i’m gay. i don’t know what this means for my education, especially considering my teacher gave me an F, but i need to be honest._

For a very real moment, Richie considers re-activating his account just to retweet that. But he doesn’t. He just lets out a few exhausted snorts of laughter, tucks his phone under his pillow, and rolls over to go to sleep. 

Richie forgot to pull the curtains before he got into bed, so in the morning he’s greeted by the bright, harsh light burning through his eyelids. 

More pleasantly, he’s also greeted by Shadow, nuzzling at his face. “Oh, hello,” Richie says, and then sputters when Shadow takes his open mouth as an invitation to lick at his teeth. He turns his face away, laughing. “You like morning breath, huh?” Richie’s pulse pounds under his jaw, throbbing in his swollen lymph nodes. (Are those the lymph nodes? He’s not sure, but this always happens when he’s hungover.) “Hey, Shadow, can you fetch me a glass of water and, like, four Advil? Please, boy?” 

Shadow cocks his head at him, alert, but not obeying his request. 

“No? Ugh. Okay, fine.” 

Richie drags himself out of bed. After guzzling a few glasses of water in the bathroom, he wanders into the kitchen to find Ben, blessedly, making coffee. 

“Your dog was trying to make out with me,” Richie greets him, before he fully takes in Ben’s appearance. He looks so terrible that it throws Richie off-kilter for a moment. His hair is greasy and sticking up in little tufts, the skin dark under his eyes, his face pale. Richie laughs. “Oh, so you might feel worse than I do.” 

Ben just nods miserably. 

After they eat, and marginally recover, Richie tells Ben to do whatever he would normally do on a Saturday, and Richie will hang out and—maybe—write. If he gets bored enough. The plan goes awry when it turns out that what Ben usually does in his free time is play Minecraft. 

Richie catches a glimpse of it on Ben’s computer screen as he walks behind him to go outside. He stops on his heel and leans over Ben’s shoulder. “Wait, wait, wait. Is this–? Oh my god. _Ben_. You know, my twelve-year-old fans really like Minecraft.”

Ben smiles a little, embarrassed; he takes a sip of his coffee. “Richie, why do you have twelve year old fans?”

“Bad parenting?” 

So, instead of making any progress toward writing, Richie pulls up a chair next to Ben’s desk and watches with awe and glee while Ben shows him his rebuild of Derry.

“Holy shit,” Richie murmurs, on the edge of his seat. “You’re a total parody of yourself. This is hilarious. You huge fucking nerd.” Ben huffs an uncomfortable little laugh, and Richie adds, “I say that with only love in my heart.” 

But he _is_ a huge fucking nerd. And apparently he hasn’t had much of a social life since returning home, if _this_ is what he’s been up to. It’s bumming Richie out a bit to picture Ben sitting here at his work desk, painstakingly recreating their hometown out of… blocks? Richie isn’t sure of the mechanics. Or of the point. 

“Let’s go out tonight,” Richie decides, while Ben walks through Derry’s Main Street. “Is there anywhere to go around here? Restaurants? Bars?” 

Ben nods absently. “Yeah, sure, I’ll take you somewhere later.” 

Before they make much more progress through pixelated downtown Derry, Richie’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He digs it out to see a text.

 **Bev** : You’re staying with Ben? 

“Shit,” he mutters, then says, “Nothing,” when Ben asks him what’s up. Tilting his phone screen away, he furtively texts back. 

**Richie** : Maybe. Who’s your source? 

**Bev** : Your IG story, idiot. 

**Richie** : Oh lol

 **Bev** : Can I call you?

Richie looks at Ben, warily, then back to his phone. “Hey, man, I gotta… This is annoying, but I have to make a phone call… Be right back.”

Richie crosses the living room and goes outside, easing the sliding glass door shut behind him, before he texts back:

 **Richie** : Sure, now is fine. 

His phone lights up with an incoming call immediately. “Heyyy,” Richie greets her, drawing the syllable out. He’s standing barefoot on the brick patio in only his pajamas—a t-shirt and shorts—and it’s not warm. The sky is overcast and gray, the morning sun glowing faintly through clouds. He rubs his calves together and crosses one arm across his chest. 

“Hi,” Bev says shortly. “So, how pissed is he? At me?” 

“Pissed?” Richie turns to glance back into the house—all of Ben’s attention is still trained on the computer screen—and he takes a few steps farther away from the window, lowering his voice just in case. “He doesn’t seem _pissed_ at all. You know our dear Benjamin. He’s just moping. Like, catatonic-level sadness. He’s playing video games.” 

“Ugh. That’s worse. I feel like shit.” 

“It’s not your fault _at all_ ,” Richie says. 

“Maybe you could… help me?” Bev says. “Like, maybe the three of us could meet for dinner or something, while you’re here? I don’t want him to be out there hating me.”

“He doesn’t hate you…”

“I keep thinking I’m gonna run into him at some point, which is ridiculous, but I know he comes to the city for work, and I–”

“Hey, hey, Bev,” Richie says quietly, interrupting her. “He doesn’t hate you. He’s not angry at you. He will mope and play Minecraft for the rest of his _life_ , but he’d never hurt you.”

Bev’s quiet for a moment before she scoffs. “Yeah, I _know_ he wouldn’t _hurt_ me. Jesus, Richie.” 

“Okay, fine,” Richie says, happy to drop it. “Yeah, let’s do dinner while I’m here. I’ll be your buffer.”

Richie waits a few hours before he tells Ben the news. By that time, they’ve both showered and cleaned up, taken Shadow for a walk around Ben’s expansive property, and had lunch. Still, Ben looks _very_ unwell. 

“Oh,” he says, his face pale again as he grips the edge of the kitchen counter. “So, she said… She wants to have dinner? The three of us?”

“Yup.” Richie considers his strategy for crossing the room to catch Ben in case he faints. “It’s a good thing, dude. I think.”

The ‘I think’ was a misstep, definitely, but it’s out there and he can’t take it back now. 

Ben opens and closes his mouth a few times. His eyes are very wide. “So, she’s… she’s not mad at me?”

“Mad at you?” Richie rolls his eyes. “You’re both acting like middle schoolers. Is he mad at me? What did she say about me? I’m not your messenger.”

(Richie, actually, loves this. He loves being the messenger. His propensity for gossip has gotten him into a lot of trouble over the years, but he’ll never learn or improve.) 

“Wait.” Ben waves a hand through the air. “Did she ask if I was mad at her? Does she think I’m mad at her? Because I’m not! I thought she needed space, I thought she didn’t want to hear from me, so I–”

Now Richie does cross the room; he claps a hand on Ben’s shoulder and shushes him like he’s an injured racehorse he’s about to put out of his misery. “Ben, buddy. I told her you’re not mad at her. I think this is gonna be good, to meet up in person, in a neutral location. With me as mediator. Clear the air. Right?”

Ben nods, a little frantically, his eyes fixed just over Richie’s shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Okay. When are we meeting up? This week?” 

“Friday night work for you?” Richie asks and Ben somehow gets paler. Maybe greener. 

“That’s _soon_.” 

“It’s the end of the week! We’ll have all week to prep.”

“All week to _freak out_ ,” Ben argues. “How’m I gonna get anything done this week with _this_ hanging over me?” 

“First Friday’s too soon, now it’s too far out,” Richie laments, punctuating it with a rueful cluck of his tongue. “What do you want from me? It’s gonna be _fine_.”

That evening, as promised, Ben drives them into town. He’s been keyed up all day, even after taking Shadow on another walk. It’s a ten minute drive from Ben’s place, down the winding driveway and onto a paved road that snakes through the hills. The town—well, the ‘town’—is no more than a stretch of buildings along the roadside. A gas station/deli, an information center for tourists, and a sports bar. 

Inside, the bar is large and mostly empty. There are square tables lined up through the center of the room, forming one neat row. There are booths along the wall opposite the bar. The TV in the corner is playing golf. A family seated at one of the booths finishes up dinner, picking over their baskets of crinkle-cut fries. There’s a couple at the far end of the bar, definitely tourists, still in hiking gear.

“Okay,” Richie says too loudly when they step inside. All the eyes flicker over to him, and then away, uninterested. “Wanna sit at the bar or what?”

They settle in at one corner, sliding onto stools. The bartender, a woman with short dark hair who looks to be in her early thirties, greets Ben by name and asks, “Who’s this?” smiling warmly at Richie. 

“My friend Richie,” Ben introduces him. Richie nods a greeting, flashing a grin. He’s always a little relieved to not be recognized in these situations; and always a little disappointed. 

After they get their drinks and the bartender is out of earshot, Richie asks Ben, “Is this your usual haunt?”

Ben nods thoughtfully. He went straight for the hard stuff this time, his hand resting on top of his old fashioned. “Yeah, I guess. It’s close. Jennifer’s nice,” he says, nodding toward the bartender. 

Richie looks at her again. She’s chatting with the tourists now, pointing out things on their dogeared trail map. She wears a black tank top and jeans; a tattoo curls around her slender bicep. She’s cute, he supposes; the kind of girl he might have latched onto at a party back in the day, for some company and plausible deniability. 

“Yeah?” Richie prompts, turning toward Ben with a smirk. “How nice is she?” 

Ben rolls his eyes immediately, but his cheeks turn pink. “No, not like that.” 

“Yeah, I guess you probably don’t get laid a lot,” Richie says. “It must be terrifying to be brought home to your posh Bond villain house in the woods. Although, my place is probably equally scary. I guess that’s why I’ve never fucked anyone with self-preservation instincts. Among other reasons.”

The joke is in there somewhere, Richie knows it, but Ben’s eyebrows furrow for a moment, trying to find it. 

Richie blazes ahead before he can. “But honestly, I’m not sure I _want_ to have casual sex again. Which is a major bummer. It’s like… Like with Eddie—” Richie pauses for a moment, holding his hand up, “Is this cool, can I tell you the gory details of our sex life?” 

Richie’s not drunk at all yet, but he doesn’t need any inhibition-lowering in order to overshare, at least not when he can joke about it. 

Ben, to his credit, nods. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Okay, well, I don’t know if it was just all our history, or all the sort of pent-up rage, or whatever, but it was _really_ intense. Like, everything. It was just, like…” Richie makes an explosion sound, mimes his brain blowing up through his ears. “I don’t know. Hookups seem gross and sad now, and I have no idea how I’d get on that level with another person. Ever. I mean… how?” 

Ben nods, his eyes wide and glassy. “Yeah, shit.” He takes a harsh gulp of his drink. “I know what you mean, Richie. Like with Bev, the one time we, uh… made love–” 

“God, I can’t talk to you,” Richie groans. “I can’t even imagine being in love enough to say ‘made love,’ that’s disgusting. That’s secret-admirer, haiku-writing bullshit. Kept a yearbook page in your wallet for twenty-seven years bullshit.” 

“Shut up, Richie,” Ben says. “God, okay, the one time that we slept together–” 

“Fucked,” Richie corrects, loudly, attracting a curious and amused glance from Jennifer. 

“It was so intense, I… I cried, a little,” Ben admits quietly. “I never really thought that would be possible for me, to feel that strongly.” 

After a beat, Richie laughs. Explosively. Because he’s an asshole. 

Ben huffs in annoyed embarrassment, shifting on his seat. 

“Sorry, sorry, Ben,” Richie manages, still snorting, “ _During_ or after? Because I’m picturing you…” Richie closes his eyes and starts thrusting his hips on the barstool, pretending to sob as he does. Now he has the attention of the bar’s entire clientele. “No wonder you scared her off.” 

“Richie, stop,” Ben whispers; he grabs at Richie’s arm, trying to still him, as his eyes dart around nervously. “It was _after_.” 

“Did you at least make her come before you started sobbing all over her?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” Ben says fiercely, his face flushed red.

Richie is still laughing; he drops his head onto the bar, shoulders shaking helplessly. His stomach hurts. He’s getting _heartburn_ , he’s laughing so hard. He clutches at his chest and gasps for breath.

“I mean,” Ben whispers, sounding more frustrated than ever but still keeping his volume under strict control, “I _did_ make her come but it wasn’t– I wasn’t _sobbing_.” 

“Oh, this is hilarious,” Richie says, finally sitting up and wiping his eyes. He feels fucking _overjoyed_. “I can’t wait to tell Ed–” he stops, his smile dropping. “Everyone,” he finishes, lamely. “Thanks for the standup material.”

Richie buys the next round to make up for being an asshole. And the round after that, for the same reason. At this rate, Richie is going to have to buy Ben every drink for the rest of his life. And, man, does he drink a lot. He stays steady, though. He has almost no tells, that Richie can see, but he keeps drinking, eventually switching to beers. 

The bar is empty now, save for Ben and Richie. Jennifer’s been chatting with them off and on, in between cleaning up and texting someone on her phone. Richie asked to see her tattoos, and she happily obliged, pulling up the hem of her shirt to show off the scripted quote decorating her ribs. 

“Oh, I _love_ that,” Richie says emphatically, before twisting in his seat and almost-fully stripping his t-shirt to show off the shitty Bart Simpson tattoo on his shoulder. 

At a certain point, Ben starts making trips to the bathroom. Richie has pissed away half his body weight by this point in the evening, so he’s not overly worried. He’s also pretty incapable of noticing anything at the moment, so he doesn’t think about it until the third time Ben disappears and Jennifer asks, “Is he getting sick in there?” 

Richie glances at Ben’s full beer, untouched for the last half hour, and then toward the closed bathroom door. “Uh, I dunno. Should I check on him?”

“Maybe. Did you… Well, of course you drove here. Are you gonna be okay?” 

Richie nods foggily. “Yeah, we’ll be… fine.” 

When Ben returns from the bathroom—he’d been gone for ten full minutes, and during that time Richie finished his abandoned beer and exchanged phone numbers with Jennifer—he stands awkwardly beside the bar. 

“You good?” Jennifer asks him, thin eyebrows raised. 

He nods, grimacing. “Yeah, I’m fine. Richie, let’s go.” 

Richie says goodnight to Jennifer (he also tells her he loves her), before Ben herds him out the door and back to the car.

In the morning, when he wakes up, Richie vaguely remembers the drive back home. 

As they buckled in, Richie asked Ben if he was okay to drive, and Ben said yes. Not that Richie could have done much if the answer was no. Then Ben jerkily backed out of the parking spot and Richie laughed and said, “Holy shit we’re gonna die.” 

They didn’t die, obviously, but it was touch-and-go for a while. After a few minutes on the road, Ben realized he’d forgot to turn on the headlights, so he said, “Shit,” and clicked them on. Richie laughed and joked about their impending deaths again. On their way up into the mountains, Ben took some of the banked curves way too fast, the G-force crushing Richie against the passenger door. In the end, Ben flew right past the turn into his own driveway; upon realizing this, he slammed the brakes and threw it into reverse, screeching backward. All Richie remembers of his own reaction is that he laughed. A lot. 

In retrospect, Richie realizes that that was all very stupid and dangerous, but nothing happened, so he doesn’t worry about it too much. 

He’s also, once again, very hungover. God. He didn’t think visiting Ben would be this much of a trial. His body can’t take much more of this. 

When he sees Ben—he looks terrible again—he offers Richie a weighty apology, his eyes downturned and brows knit together. “Look, Richie, I’m _really_ sorry about last night. That was… potentially very bad. And I just feel… awful.”

Richie raises his eyebrows, frowning a little. “I mean, sure, but nothing happened, so.” He shrugs. “I’ve seen worse. Don’t sweat it. Now: coffee. You started a pot yet? No? _That’s_ the thing you should be apologizing for.”

Richie moves around him, slapping his shoulder in a firm, hopefully reassuring gesture, and starts the coffee. 

At the end of the week, Ben drives them into Manhattan. It’s a long drive, and they’re going to stay at Ben’s Upper East Side apartment for the night, instead of driving back. The restaurant that Bev suggested is small and trendy, a dim interior crowded with tables. Richie gives the name ‘Marsh’ at the door, and the blasé hostess leads them to a table for four in the middle of the dining room. 

Ben doesn’t sit down as she sets a menu at each place setting. “Why is it–? There are only three of us,” he says to her, his hands clutched together. 

She pauses, in the midst of filling their water glasses. “Um…”

“We don’t need four,” Ben continues, seeming irrationally nervous about this mix-up. Richie can see the cartoon sweat beads rolling down his forehead. 

Richie reaches for his arm, tugging him a half step backward. “It’s fine, thanks. We’re good.” When the hostess leaves, Richie shoves Ben down into one chair and sits next to him. “Just relax, dude. It’s fine. I’ll drink the extra water, you don’t have to make a scene.”

Ben nods, not relaxing in the slightest. He takes a few gulps of his own water. His hands are shaking.

Ben spent the week working from home, which involved a lot of conference calls and meetings at odd hours with clients and potential clients from around the world. Richie heard him one evening at 10pm starting a call with some fluent-sounding—to Richie’s ears, anyway—pleasantries in Mandarin. Ben worked long hours, ending most evenings with a couple drinks at his desk before turning in for the night. Richie spent the week taking Shadow on walks and lounging in Ben’s house watching TV and dicking around on Twitter. He had one maybe-promising conversation with a former colleague, but he doesn’t want to pin his hopes on it yet. After this weekend, he’s going back home. After that, who knows. 

When the waiter arrives to take their drink orders, Ben asks for a sparkling water. This throws Richie off, so he fumbles through his wine order worse than usual. 

“You’re not gonna have a drink?” Richie asks him once the waiter’s gone. “Not to steady your nerves or anything? You seem… shaky.” 

Ben moves his hands to his lap. “Yeah, no, I want to… stay sober for this.” 

Richie raises his eyebrows. “Alright. Suit yourself.” 

When they get their drinks, Richie thanks the waiter and then waves him off, saying that they’ll order when the rest of the party is here. “Where _is_ she anyway?” Richie wonders aloud, ducking his head to check the time on his phone. 

Richie hears his voice first. It’s a plaintive and immediately recognizable: “What the fuck?” He glances up to make eye contact with Eddie, standing at Bev’s side and staring.

Richie clambers to his feet. “Shit, why is– Why is _he_ here?” 

“He was in town,” Bev says mildly. The corner of her mouth tugs up, her eyes twinkling—the devious bastard. She awkwardly negotiates a greeting hug with Ben; he hesitates every step of the way, until his arms are finally around her shoulders, patting her back in stiff, jerky motions. 

Meanwhile, Eddie stares Richie down, still standing in the flow of traffic—until a passing waiter with a tray full of drinks tries to skirt around him. “Shit, sorry,” Eddie mutters, snapping from his daze and jumping forward toward the table. “Um, hi, I’m here interviewing for jobs and Bev– she didn’t– I thought it was just going to be the two of us.” 

“And I thought it was going to be the three of us,” Richie says.

Bev smiles innocently as she sits down and grabs the drink menu. “Oops.” 

Richie sits down, too, and then Ben, until Eddie is the only one left standing. 

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” Richie says to him, gesturing at the remaining chair, directly across from where he’s sitting. “I’m sure we can be civil.” 

Eddie’s face goes pink and he pulls out his chair in a sharp jerk before sitting down. “Fine.” Then he adds, with a hurried nod, “It’s nice to see you, Ben.”

“Yeah, you too, Eddie.” 

At first, there’s just mindless, busy-bodied chatter, as Bev fixates on the wine list, as if this is the most important decision she’ll make in her life. She demands to know what Richie ordered and he’s not sure, but he gives her his glass so she can try it, but that doesn’t help if he doesn’t _know_ what he ordered, _Richie_. 

“Well, Jesus, fine, I’ll ask the waiter,” Richie says then, turning around in his seat so sharply that he almost knocks a passing woman to the floor. He apologizes profusely and turns back to face his dining companions. “That’ll be the next thing,” he mutters. “Don’t tell Twitter I nearly assaulted an old lady.” 

When the four of them finally each have a drink, and when they’ve placed their dinner orders, and the menus have been ripped from their hands, there is nothing left to do but talk to each other. 

“So, Eddie,” Richie begins, thunking both elbows on the table as he leans forward. “How was Mike?”

Eddie says, “You didn’t ask when you called?”

Richie grins. God, Eddie is too easy sometimes. He _knew_ that was gonna get under his skin. 

Eddie doesn’t let Richie get a word in, though, tripping over himself to continue speaking: “Uh, he was fine, though. I mean, well, no– he’s actually doing kinda awful, or he _was_ , but he went to stay with Bill for a while now. So I think that’s good.”

Richie nods, elated with Eddie’s rambling. “Sure. Mid-life crisis club.” 

“Well.” Eddie snorts derisively and gestures at the four of them. 

“Okay, okay, Eds, cheap shot, but I’ll have you know–” Richie points at him from across the table, and Eddie seems pinned by his attention. Which is immensely satisfying, far better than having an entire audience wrapped around his finger. “I’m doing _great_. I got a call this week, and they want me to reprise my role as myself on the upcoming season of _Curb Your Enthusiasm_. Yeah, apparently they thought it was hilarious: a newly-out forty-year-old comedian fighting off a hoard of Gen-Z Twitter gays who think he’s setting LGBT rights back by a decade.” Richie pauses for a moment to let that settle, flopping against his backrest. “So things are looking up.”

Eddie watches him for a moment, his upper lip twitching. Then he huffs a laugh and hides his nose in his glass of wine, but not before muttering, “Yeah, Richie, that sounds really _great_.” 

“Thanks, it _is_ ,” Richie says back, reveling in Eddie’s attention, bitter as it may be. God, he did miss this. “So, you’re planning to move back to New York?” 

Eddie seems caught off-guard by this for a moment, blinking, until his eyes flash and he says, “Oh, yeah, the jobs. Yeah. I’m interviewing.” 

Richie snorts. “Yeah, jobs. I’ve heard of ‘em.” 

“Shut up,” Eddie snaps. He proceeds to say, with too much enunciation, to the point that he’s practically spitting all over the table, “I interviewed for a few insurance positions, similar to the job I had before, but I’m also taking the chance to explore something new, so I applied for some database administration opportunities and for some of the jobs I would be able to work remotely, which is something I’m considering.” 

Richie’s mouth hangs open. When Eddie finishes speaking and catches his breath, Richie laughs. He’s not even trying to be an asshole, he just finds this _hilarious_.

 _Database administration opportunities_ … What a fucking riot. 

Eddie does not find it hilarious. “Richie, I swear to god, I just– I didn’t know you were gonna be here, and I’m not– I really don’t think I can–” He shoves his chair back from the table as if he’s going to leave. 

Bev says, “Richie, stop being an asshole,” and Richie turns to her, wide-eyed and incredulous. He practically forgot she was here, same with Ben, considering he’s been so tunnel-focused on Eddie. 

“I’m _not_ being an asshole!” Richie protests. 

“Okay, shut up,” Bev says, gesturing to him as if she’s casting a spell on him, and then turns and does the same to Eddie, “And _you_ shut up.” 

“You’re the one who invited me,” Eddie mutters, “ _Knowing_ that Richie was going to–”

“Ah, bup-bup-bup,” Bev says, reaching to try to clap her hand over Eddie’s mouth. (He sputters and twists away from her, saying, “What the _fuck_ , are you _twelve?_ ”)

“Yeah, Bev’s right,” Richie says, and then fends off her hands as she turns her silencing attention on him, “We’re here for the Ben-Bev post-mortem. We might as well get on with it.”

Ben, who has been stock-still and silent since they sat down, hand clenched on his sparkling water, glances up. He looks ill. 

“I just want to say,” he blurts, his attention laser-focused on Bev, “I’m really sorry about everything.” Bev looks uncomfortable, twisting in her chair, and more so as Ben continues spewing apologies. “I understand that you needed space, and I didn’t want to bother you, or put any pressure on you, but I’m sorry if you thought that I was–”

“Hey, hey, Ben,” Richie interrupts, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “I think this might be counterproductive. You were hurt, right? You were hurt that she stopped talking to you?”

“I– I understand why– and I don’t hold it against you–”

“No, hey, play along with me for a second,” Richie says, ignoring Eddie as he rolls his eyes. “You were hurt, right? That’s fine. I think it’s good to admit that.”

Ben stares at his hands and nods. “Yeah, I– Yeah. I was.” 

Bev doesn’t look up either, picking at her fingernails. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t have to–” Ben starts, but Bev talks over him: “You didn’t do anything wrong, I know I handled everything really badly–”

“Okay, okay, if I may,” Eddie says then, leaning forward. Richie’s eyebrows shoot up, on the edge of his seat for whatever therapist-Kaspbrak is about to say. “From my understanding of the situation, I think Bev may have been caught up in the moment and said or done something that she later realized she didn’t mean. Or that she isn’t sure she meant. And then she may have been unsure about how to take that back, so she avoided it. Is that accurate?”

After a moment, Bev nods, chewing her bottom lip. Ben’s shoulders slump as he nods. Richie, on the other hand, perks up. How _interesting_ … He leans forward, catching Eddie’s eye across the table. 

“That’s a good point, but I don’t think this is solely on Bev,” Richie says. 

Eddie watches him warily. “I didn’t say it was.”

“There may have been an expectation of reciprocity that set you back.” Richie holds Ben’s gaze carefully as he speaks, but he can feel the heat of Eddie’s gaze on him. “Blinded both of you, but maybe Ben in particular, to the fact that you two don’t really know each other that well. You could never have started at that level.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, nodding his head rapidly. “That’s really true. What happened between you two definitely complicates things, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have a relationship anymore. It won’t be easy, but if it’s important to you, you could really make an effort to be friends first.”

“Excellent point, Eddie,” Richie says, trying his best not to smile. (Eddie mutters, “Thank you,” under his breath, his cheeks going pink.) “I think it’s obvious the two of you care about each other and want to be in each other’s lives regardless of whether it might turn romantic. And if you really get to know each other–”

Eddie interrupts, in that excited way he does sometimes, when he seems to know what Richie is going to say and he just can’t wait for him to say it: “Yeah, I think, you really need to start at square one. No assumptions. Be _curious_.”

“So well said,” Richie praises, not able to hold back his smile anymore. Eddie is really blushing now, his cheeks tight and dimpled. His eyes flicker up to meet Richie’s for a fleeting half-second and then he trains them back on the table in front of him. “If you put in the work, then those feelings might grow over time. If not, at least you’ll be friends.” 

“Yeah, and,” Eddie adds, turning to glance at Bev before he looks back at Richie, “It will definitely help to have your own stuff going on. Make sure you’re secure on your own first. And like, probably don’t move in together right away. That’s a really bad idea.”

Ben’s brow furrows. “We weren’t planning on… uh.” He trails off then, finally realizing that this is not really about him. 

After dinner, the four of them stand around outside, waiting for the valet. Bev stands a few paces away from the door, talking with Ben, an unlit cigarette dangling from her fingers. She’s smiling at him, hesitant but friendly. 

Eddie and Richie are loitering by the door, side-by-side, in a mirrored posture, with their arms crossed. 

Richie sucks in a breath and says, “So, um. That was about us, right? Everything we said?” 

Eddie smiles self-consciously. It’s charming, his tight-lipped smile as he looks up at the awning overhead. “Yeah, I guess. I’ve been thinking a lot about everything that happened between us.” 

“Me, too,” Richie says quickly. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, I guess.” 

“Me, too,” Eddie says, turning to face him. 

The motion is a little abrupt, a little too intense; in a different life, Richie might have followed Eddie’s momentum, and grabbed his face and kissed him. But he’s lived that life, where he acts on his first impulse when it comes to Eddie, and it didn’t work. He’s trying to be different this time. Restraint, or something. 

But not _that_ restrained, because Richie grins and asks, “You’ve been thinking about yourself?” 

Frustration flashes across Eddie’s face, predictable, reassuring. “No– well, _yeah_ , but I meant, _you_. And you _know_ what I meant, you just couldn’t resist the stupid joke.” 

“Yep,” Richie says. “You know me so well.” 

“Do I?” Eddie’s face is serious again, looking imploringly up at Richie. “I thought that was, like, the whole problem. That I _didn’t_.” 

“Well.” Richie shrugs. He kicks at the ground, scuffing the sole of his shoe against the pavement. “I don’t know. I guess I want you to.” 

Eddie watches him for another moment, and it stretches on long enough to become almost unbearable. Eddie looks at Richie a lot, but he’s hardly ever _quiet_ about it. He’s usually chomping at the bit to tell Richie exactly what he’s thinking—as long as it’s kind of mean and nitpicky. Maybe it never was exactly what Eddie was thinking, after all. Maybe it was all a cover, too, just like Richie’s jokes. Maybe Richie’s a fucking idiot since it took him until _now_ to realize that. 

In any case, Richie is in actual physical pain, squirming under Eddie’s scrutiny—and so, so desperately unsure of what he’s thinking. And so, so wishing that Eddie would break the tension, call him an idiot, scoff and look away. 

Eddie doesn’t do any of that, and Richie grits his teeth and suffers through it. 

Finally, mercifully, Eddie turns to face the street again. He's smiling a little when he says, “Yeah. I want to, too.”


	4. Chapter 4

When Eddie gets to Richie’s house, he stabs the doorbell with one finger and then steps back so he’s within view of the security system’s camera. He lived here for three months, so he recognizes the melodic chime of the doorbell; absently, he hums along with it as it plays. While he waits, he twists around, looking behind him at the wide, looped driveway where he’s parked his car; over at the prickly pears and short, stubby palm trees that fill in the gap between the front door and the garage; down at the pale slate of the walkway on which he stands. 

It’s been two months since Eddie was here last. It’s been a little over a month since he last saw Richie, in New York. They’ve talked some since then, just a few updates back and forth. 

Eddie turns back to the door and jabs the buzzer a few more times in quick succession. 

In the midst of the chiming—the melody stutters and interrupts itself to start again every time he pushes the button—the lock clicks and Richie throws the door open. 

“Oh, I should’ve known it was you.” Richie grins brightly at him. His face is warm and lined, his hair long and curling around the nape of his neck. He braces one arm against the open door and leans with his hip jutted out. He’s wearing dark jeans, no shoes or socks, and a plain gray t-shirt that clings to his body a little too well. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “What gave it away? The fact that I texted you my ETA fifteen minutes ago?” 

“No, it was the fact that someone was hammering on the doorbell like a woodpecker on Adderall– Is that a _Prius?_ ” 

The change in conversation is abrupt but not hard to follow for Eddie. He was dreading this moment. Richie’s eyes have drifted over his shoulder to fixate on the teal-blue hybrid sitting unassumingly in the driveway. 

“You drive a Prius now? Holy shit. You’re taking your assimilation seriously.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s a good car…” Eddie’s face burns a little, and he knows Richie is going to have his fun with this no matter _what_ he says. 

“You’re driving a hybrid, you took a job as a DBA for a nonprofit—at, what, half your previous salary?—you have a condo in the fucking Valley…”

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie says, feeling his muscles tense even as he wills himself to relax.

Richie trains his gaze back on him, eyes flashing, as he finishes, “And your hair is _ungelled_ … Who are you and what have you done with Edward Kaspbrak?” 

“Can I come in or what?” Eddie snaps. “I’ll get my stuff and go, it’ll take, like, five minutes.”

Richie’s face falls. He steps away from the door, shoulders slumping, and holds it wider for Eddie to step through. “Yeah, come in.”

Eddie winces. “I’m sorry, Rich–”

“No, no.” Richie shakes his head; he sounds sincere and contrite. “I know I’m not supposed to give you shit anymore, so sincerely, that’s on me.”

“Yeah, but… I can be an adult about it,” Eddie says with a shrug. “You don’t have to change your whole personality. Like, I can… work on having normal reactions, and being… more chill.” 

“Well, I won’t hold my breath,” Richie jokes. Eddie lets out a tense laugh, and Richie apologizes again. “Okay, this might be harder than we thought.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Eddie says. “I’m just a little sensitive right now.” 

“I will rein in my personality,” Richie promises, holding up one hand solemnly. 

“Thanks.” 

Eddie finally crosses the threshold into the house and Richie closes the door behind him. 

After they’ve brought Eddie’s boxes up from the basement and loaded them into his car, Richie invites Eddie to stay a while longer, if he wants to. They could sit out by the pool and talk. Have a drink. Order some dinner. 

Eddie stares at him for a moment, standing stiff in the middle of the kitchen, his last box in his arms. He sets the box down on the table with a dull thunk. Richie watches him from where he sits perched on top of the counter. 

“Okay, so,” Eddie begins, already a bit breathless, as he turns to face Richie. “I didn’t move out here for you. But I also didn’t… _not_ move out here for you. You were a factor. In that decision.”

Richie smiles wryly. “Okay…”

“So, yes, I’d like to spend more time with you, but I think we need to be careful about how we do that.”

Richie nods, clearly trying to school his expression into something more serious. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“And you, too, Richie,” Eddie says quickly. “Your comfort is… important. Too.” 

Richie’s expression breaks and he giggles. “Sorry, sorry, you’re acting like an alien. Can we just have dinner? What do you think’s gonna happen?”

Eddie doesn’t want to answer that question. What he thinks (worries) is going to happen is that he’ll stay for dinner and he’ll have a great time with Richie and then they’ll have sex and he’ll spend the night, and they’ll fall into another relationship that’s just as doomed-to-fail as the first. 

So instead Eddie says, “I don’t know. Sure, let’s eat. Order something,” and he turns to pick up the box and take it to the car. 

Richie orders Thai and they eat sitting out by the pool. The backyard is immaculate: a lush green lawn that must waste a ton of water surrounds the glittering pool, all penned in by hedges and a tall fence. It’s a nice house; a house that says, ‘I just completed my first national tour’; that says, ‘my good fortune is never going to run out.’ Now that Eddie thinks about it, there’s something charming and kind of sad about Richie buying this house, eight or so years ago. A three bedroom house with a backyard and a pool, all to himself. Did he ever plan on sharing it with someone else? Was that part of the vision at the beginning? 

For all he knows, maybe someone else _has_ lived here with Richie. Eddie never asked when he moved in, or during the three months that he lived here. Why does he assume he’s the first? 

So, now, he looks over at Richie, where he’s sitting cross-legged on the lounge chair and picking over his Pad Thai. 

“Hey, Richie.”

Richie hums but doesn’t glance up from his food.

“I was wondering. When you bought this house, was it just for you, or was there ever anyone… else?” 

Richie stabs his chopsticks into the mess of noodles and looks up. “Um…” He seems amused, but hesitant, and more than a little nervous. His half-smile freezes awkwardly on his face. 

Eddie keeps talking. “Sorry, I was just wondering. I guess I’m realizing there’s a lot I don’t know about you. And I’d like to know, if you’d like to tell me.”

“Oh, okay.” Richie’s expression brightens now as he rearranges his limbs on the chair. He turns toward Eddie, his knees flopping out again. “Should we do speed dating questions?”

Eddie rolls his eyes; he knows that’s the reaction Richie is fishing for, anyway. “Or we could just talk like normal people? Get to know each other.”

“Cute that you think anything about this is normal.”

“That’s why I said _like_ normal people, Richie.” 

Eddie can feel himself bristling again, and he takes a couple deep breaths, willing himself to relax. He knows that Richie jokes like a mirror reflects light; it’s automatic, involuntary, unthinking. Eddie doesn’t want that to change. Richie’s quick-witted humor, the way he picks up on things and twists them around, the connections he makes in the blink of an eye; Eddie _loves_ that about Richie. In all of the ways that Eddie loves Richie, and always will, the foundation is that he loves him as the friend who could always make him laugh. (And was sometimes relentless with it, especially when Eddie was upset, needling him until he broke down and laughed. It was always a release of tension, even if Eddie’s pride took a hit. Richie would watch him with a hungry look in his eyes, and keep poking at him until Eddie was wrung dry.) 

So, no, Eddie doesn’t want to punish Richie for his reflexes, especially not the ones he enjoys most of the time. All he really wants from Richie is a little bit of give-and-take, so he doesn’t always have to be the one pumping the brakes. Always the one with the stick up his ass, ruining the fun. Once in a while, he wants a somber display from Richie, just to prove that he really does care enough to exercise some restraint. 

And Eddie, he can do that, too. He’s trying to, anyway. If Richie’s a mirror, then Eddie’s… also a mirror. He doesn’t have to give everything back to Richie at a hundred and ten percent, bouncing back and forth as they warp and intensify each other’s reactions. He doesn’t have to let every flippant remark bury under his skin. Sometimes, he should let the jokes roll off his back, until Richie gets it all out of his system, and then, maybe, he’ll be rewarded with something true. 

“You know, what we said in New York,” Eddie says, before he loses his nerve. “Let’s try to be friends first. Really get to know each other.” He pauses, but he can’t read anything from Richie’s expression, his blank, unblinking stare, his slack mouth. So he adds, in exasperation, “Is that fucking stupid?” 

Eddie’s face starts to burn, thinking that maybe he’s the only one in this, and wouldn’t _that_ be embarrassing, because Richie has actually done nothing so far tonight beyond tease Eddie and ask him to stay for dinner. And reading any significance into _that_ is completely idiotic because Richie’s just an extrovert and he likes having company, or maybe he was just being polite, or worse, taking pity on Eddie who–

 _Fuck_ , who _admitted_ that he moved back to L.A. in hopes of rekindling a relationship with Richie. 

So, Eddie’s cards are fully on the table then. But before he can continue spiraling too much, Richie quietly says, “It’s not stupid.”

His eyes are owlish behind his glasses, flickering up to make brief, abortive eye contact, and Eddie realizes, his stomach swooping, that he’s getting a little taste of what he wants. Richie being _serious_. 

Desperately, he tries to tend to that spark of sincerity, cupping his hands gently around it. He leans forward, and sets his take-out container on the ground, before he says, “Okay, do you want to try that?”

Richie nods, his face still serious. “Yeah.”

He seems so quiet and meek that Eddie’s heart twists. “Okay, great. That’s really great. So, we’ll, uh… Spend time together, as friends. Get to know each other. No assumptions. Try not to fall into our old patterns…”

Richie keeps nodding, more rapidly. “Yeah, yeah. That sounds good.” 

Eddie blurts, “And no sex for a while.” 

Whatever quiet spell had fallen over Richie abruptly lifts. He barks a laugh and says, “Whoa, hold up, I thought we were just friends.” 

“Well, okay, I’m stating the obvious, then,” Eddie says, his face burning. “Even if we’re… going in the direction of eventually getting back together—which, I mean, I’m… amenable to that, just to make that explicit—”

Richie’s eyebrows waggle, and Eddie tries to ignore him so he can get through this.

“—I think it would be really counterproductive if we had sex any time soon.” 

Richie nods with false-sobriety. He can barely keep his mouth in a straight line. “Do we need a contract? Friends with the option of relationship renewal? No sex clause, subject to review.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Very funny. Um, but, how long do you think we should hold out?” 

“However long feels okay?” Richie suggests. 

“No, no way. We need to set an actual timeline otherwise we’re gonna cave, like, tomorrow.” 

Richie laughs again, snorting as his shoulders quake. “Hey, speak for yourself. I’m an adult with self control. Maybe a week?” 

Eddie sputters, “A _week?_ Are you kidding me, Richie?” 

“Okay, a month,” Richie says, throwing his hands up. “I don’t fucking know.” 

“A month.” Eddie nods. “Okay.” 

“A month.” Richie pretends to write in the palm of his hand, updating their contract. “No sex clause, duration one month– is that thirty days?” He glances up and Eddie nods. 

“Until the–” Eddie checks the date on his phone, “–until the twelfth of next month, I guess. Might as well make it official.”

“Okay. Duration thirty days, subject to early release?” Richie looks up at him from over the top of his glasses and it’s way sexier than it has any right to be.

Eddie squirms. “Absolutely not.” 

Richie drops his eyes again to continue ‘writing.’ "Okay. Thirty days without parole.” He finishes the ‘contract’ with a flourish of his ‘pen’ and holds out the palm of his hand for Eddie’s inspection. “I’ll send you a copy, you can look it over with your lawyer, okay?”

Eddie ends up staying at Richie’s for hours. They sit by the pool until dark, circling back to that first question Eddie asked, that sent them down this path. Turns out no, Richie had never lived with a significant other until Eddie—well, there was a weird caveat about a roommate who he fucked a few times in his twenties, but that doesn’t count, and Eddie’s question was about his L.A. house in particular, so the answer is a definitive _no_. A live-in boyfriend wouldn’t have meshed well with being closeted, Eddie supposes. Maybe it was a stupid question. 

“Hey, you don’t have to answer this,” Eddie says when there’s a lull. They’re reclined in the chairs side-by-side, knees bent toward each other. They’re both staring out over the pool, the rippling crystal water reflecting the late evening glow. “I was just wondering. Why did you never come out?”

“That’s the million-dollar question, baby.”

For a moment, Eddie thinks that’s the only answer he’s going to get. And he’s fine with that.

But Richie surprises him. He sighs and says, “I spent so long as a kid having these really strong feelings and I couldn’t– _tell_ – anyone. And not even about you, I don’t really mean you, like it’s not– not everything is about you, you know?” 

Eddie snorts a laugh. “Thanks, I’m aware.”

“Anyone,” Richie says, slashing a hand through the air. “I couldn’t tell my parents or my friends. I was so fucking ashamed of how I felt. And I think that really fucked me up. And I think it makes it, like, impossible for me to say how I feel now, like it feels… It feels like I’m ripping myself open. It feels like danger. Like, I am in actual, real, physical danger. And on some level, I know that’s irrational. Especially now. But… it’s hard to shake.”

Richie crosses his arms tight over his chest, and shoves his hands under his armpits. He’s trembling a little, shivering. He stares straight above, his jaw set. 

Eddie’s heart leaps to his throat. He swallows it back and says, “Thanks for telling me that, Richie. I’m sorry, that must have been… lonely.” 

Richie nods, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. He lets out a turbulent breath. Eddie wants to hold him, draw him into his arms and let him tuck his face into his neck, and stroke the back of his head. He’s overwhelmed by the raw strength of his own protective instinct, throbbing against his ribs; at the moment, he can only process it selfishly. Maybe he just wants Richie to be dependent on him, so he won’t leave him. Maybe he just wants to touch him.

It’s getting dark outside, so Eddie latches onto that excuse, offers it to Richie: “Hey, it’s getting cold out here, wanna go inside?” 

Inside, Richie’s back to steady smiles, and Eddie lets him sweep the darker emotions under the rug. Richie’s great at compartmentalizing, in a way that Eddie sometimes envies. Even if it is an act, it’s a convincing one. Richie seems to forget he’s acting at times.

Now, he chatters excitedly as he digs through his fridge. “Drinks, drinks, drinks… I don’t know if I have anything you like. I have…” He holds a bottle of beer up to the light and squints at it as if it’s an ancient artifact. “Corona, apparently. This has probably been in here for three years. Want it?”

Eddie reaches for it. “Yeah, sure, I’m easy.” 

Richie snorts as he grabs one for himself. “I know you want me to say, ‘ _Yeah_ , you are,’ or something, but I can’t even take the lazy joke because that’s just so blatantly false. Eds, you are the most difficult person on earth.” 

Before Eddie can retort, or even react, Richie says, “Oh, shit, limes!” and dives back into the fridge. “Don’t drink that yet, I have limes!” 

Smiling, Eddie waits while Richie finds a lime, rolling loose in the bottom of the produce drawer, and then locates a sharp paring knife and a cutting board. He carves out two wedges and shoves one into the neck of each of their bottles. 

“Cheers,” Richie says raising his drink to clink Eddie’s. He takes a swig, but in the middle of swallowing, his eyes go wide. Pulling his drink away, some beer dribbling down his chin, he says, “Oh, shit, I didn’t tell you. Ben almost killed me.” 

After Richie recounts his moderately alarming drunk driving story, laughing at his own dark jokes all the while, they settle into the living room. Eddie takes the couch and is disappointed when Richie plops down in the adjacent armchair instead of joining him. 

“Alright, now _I_ have questions for _you_ ,” Richie begins in a scholarly tone. His legs are crossed, one hand primly resting on his knee. With the other, he gestures at the couch in a sweeping motion. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“I think I’m gonna stay sitting up, thanks,” Eddie mutters. 

And he does, for a while, but as the conversation takes its turns, he eventually puts his feet up and then, slowly, slides down to lay his head on the armrest. 

Richie’s question-asking strategy seems to be: throw out a direct and intense enough question to disarm Eddie, laugh for a moment, then answer it himself and wait for Eddie to reciprocate. It works well. 

_What’s a memory that makes you cringe every time you think of it?_ (“Are you collecting blackmail material, Richie?”) _What’s the worst thing you’ve done to someone you care about?_ (“Oh, we’re _really_ getting to know each other tonight, huh?”) _What’s your biggest regret that has nothing to do with me?_ (“Okay, so meeting you is off the table… In that case, I mean, getting married is up there.”) _What was it like when your mom died?_ (“…Weird.”)

“Are your parents still alive?” Eddie asks then, realizing that he doesn’t even know and feeling awful for that. He lifts his head off the couch to squint at Richie. 

Richie says, “My mom is. My dad died last year.” He talks about them for a while. They lived in Chicago ever since the family moved there when Richie was in high school. He came out to his mom when he was twenty-three. He assumed she told his father, but the two of them never talked about it. “There wasn’t really any reason to,” Richie says, shrugging. 

“Do you regret that?” Eddie asks quietly. “Never talking to him about it?”

Richie shrugs again. “Honestly, not really. He knew. I wasn’t lying to him. We had a good relationship, we just didn’t really _talk_. I think we talked, like, once and it was awful and we both cried on the phone and we were like, well, let’s never do _that_ again.” He flashes a goofy grin. “And we _didn’t_.” 

“What about your mom? Do you talk to her?”

“Yeah, sure, we talk. Like, she calls me and tells me family gossip or complains about her neighbors, and she used to ask me if I was seeing anyone but… she stopped asking at some point. I always said no, guess it got depressing.” 

Richie chews on his bottom lip for a moment, his eyes distant. Then he shakes his head, refocuses, and says, “Wait, this is supposed to be your interrogation time, I’m getting sidetracked. Next question, Eduardo. What did you miss most about me in our time apart? Besides my ass.”

Eddie huffs a laugh, deciding to let the deflection slide. “Okay, besides your ass… Hm. That’s a tough one.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“I’m kidding, Richie, um. Okay, don’t make fun of me, but I used to smell your dirty laundry and I thought about that a lot.” 

There’s a beat of silence before Richie explodes, with perfect comedic timing, “You used to _what?_ You little perv!” 

“Okay, but, okay,” Eddie says, waving his hands and laughing. “I’ll say something nonsexual, too.” 

“I should hope you weren’t staying with me solely for the underwear-sniffing.” 

“It wasn’t even… I mean, okay, yeah, it _was_ underwear once or twice, but it was mostly just, like, your t-shirts.” 

“Unbelievable.” Richie shakes his head and collapses against the back of his chair in defeat. “You horny little gremlin.” 

“It’s pheromones!” Eddie protests, still laughing even as his face is hot with embarrassment. “It’s normal!” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m giving you shit like I don’t wanna suck on your dirty socks.” 

Eddie bolts upright. “Excuse me? What?!” 

Richie laughs, and now _his_ face is red. “Okay, we can… return to this another time.” 

Eddie laughs deliriously, flopping back onto the couch. “Okay, okay. I missed… this is gonna sound cheesy and cliche, I don’t know what else to say, but I missed your smile and your laugh…” 

Richie bats his eyelashes at him, a hand clapped over his heart. “Aw, Eds…” 

“Yeah, shut up,” Eddie grumbles. “You’re cute.” 

“I’m _cute?_ ” Richie looks elated.

“Yeah, fuck off.”

Richie is the first to slide off the furniture and onto the floor, as his posture progressively worsens. But once he’s slumped on the floor, leaning against the chair, Eddie is quick to join him, rolling off the couch. Their feet knock together lazily as Eddie twists around. He folds his hands behind his head, propping it up so he can see Richie.

“Did you know you were gay when you got married?” Richie asks him. 

“Yeah.” 

Richie blinks once. “Really?” 

“Yeah, I did. Like, I’m… I knew I was interested in men sexually—and I knew that I was not that interested in women—but I didn’t think I would ever have a relationship with a man, so I figured…” Eddie trails off, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Yeah, yeah, that makes sense,” Richie says, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Find a mom-wife to wash your socks for the rest of your life–” Eddie sighs but Richie keeps going, says, “–while you fuck guys on the side?” 

Eddie grimaces. “Richie.” 

“Sorry,” Richie mutters, and he seems at least thirty-percent contrite. He seems seventy-percent smug. 

So Eddie lets it go, instead grins and says, “You’re still on this sock thing, huh?” 

Richie’s eyes go wide and indignant as he begins to sputter a defense: “No, I–”

“I didn’t realize this was such a big thing for you,” Eddie says, savoring how quickly Richie becomes incoherent, and not begrudging Richie one bit for how often he puts Eddie in this position. It’s so much fun. “You think about my socks a lot?” 

“Fuck you,” Richie spits, kicking at his legs until Eddie, laughingly, curls up like a pillbug to weather the attack. “That’s the last time I tell you about my kinks.”

From there, the conversation twists again, a chain of loose associations. They trade first-time stories, each mortifying in their own right. Eddie’s was when he was twenty-four (late bloomer), with his girlfriend at the time. He didn’t tell her it was his first time, and she didn’t seem to suspect anything. He lost his virginity like it was his job, methodical and determined to be rid of it. (Richie asks Eddie if he made her come and Eddie answers honestly that he doesn’t know; Richie smirks and says, “So that’s a no.” As if he’s such a womanizer.) 

Richie’s first time was when he was eighteen, a month into his first year at college. It was a boy named Will who lived in the same dorm, who was gay and very open about it, in a way that made Richie’s stomach clench up in knots. At some house party, toward the beginning of the semester, Richie got drunk enough to lean into his ear and shout over the music, “Do you wanna…?” And he did ‘wanna.’ They went back to Richie’s dorm room—his roommate was out that night—and exchanged handjobs while Richie sucked a hickey into his throat. Will proudly displayed the mark for the rest of the week. Richie ended up avoiding him, and Will eventually took the hint, and stopped saying hi when they passed each other on campus. 

Eddie’s first time with a man was when he was twenty-six. He was in Seattle on business, and maybe it was the fact that he had never been farther from home that emboldened him, but he gathered up all his courage and went to a gay bar. (Except it distinctly did not feel like courage at the time; it felt more like weakness, surrender.) He met a man whose name was Dave, and he was older than him, probably in his late thirties, if not forty. Eddie brought him back to his hotel room, and Dave sucked him off without a condom. After Eddie came down his throat, he got panicked about STDs; the entire ordeal is mortifying in retrospect (Eddie didn’t reciprocate, what with the panic attack, and Dave eventually just left), but as he recounts the story now, Richie doesn’t laugh. He looks at Eddie with heartbreaking sympathy as Eddie tells him that he didn’t sleep with another man until after he was married.

They stay on the subject of sex for well over an hour, but things take a lighter turn when Richie asks, “What was the best sex you’ve ever had, not including me?” 

Eddie snorts. “Presumptuous.” 

“Okay, prove me wrong.” Richie spreads his arms in some kind of challenge, but all it really does is put his body on display, draw attention to the broad expanse of his chest and shoulders. 

Eddie swallows, his dry throat clicking, as he thinks about (tries _not_ to think about) crawling over there and pushing Richie flat to the carpet. 

Richie’s presumption is true, of course it is, but Eddie doesn’t need to admit that. So instead he says, “There was a time when Myra was out of town, visiting her mom I think, and the guy that I was… at the time… he came over, and that was the first time I topped… And in our bed. So that was, uh. Memorable.” 

Eddie’s skin prickles, flushing with heat, not only at the memory, but at the intoxicating mix of humiliation-excitement from admitting this to Richie. 

And Richie– his jaw drops. “That’s _so_ fucking slimy. Oh my _god_. That’s hot as hell. Can you get married again so I can be your mistress? Jesus fucking Christ.” 

Eddie chuckles, self-conscious and… okay, turned on. Really turned on. The texture of the carpet is almost unbearably stimulating underneath his fingers. His shifts his hips as subtly as he can, and the drag of his zipper against his cock is not nearly enough. In the back of his mind, he knows he should get up off the floor and say goodnight, drive back home… 

But of course, he doesn’t do that. He says, too quietly for it to ever be a joke, his eyes burning, “What about you, Richie? Best sex you ever had, not including me?” 

Richie laughs a little, but his cheeks are flushed. He rakes a hand through his hair and looks up at the ceiling while he thinks. “Um. Okay. Here’s a good one. My first manager, I used to hook up with him—don’t judge me—and there was one time, uh, fuck, this is… embarrassing, but one time before I went on stage at some shitty comedy club, he jerked me off—that actually wasn’t that uncommon for us, part of his on-the-job duties, right?”

“Gross,” Eddie says mildly, and Richie waggles his eyebrows, says, “I know, right?” and continues: 

“But this one time in particular, he _stopped_ before I came and like, shoved me out on stage.” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eddie mutters, the mental image blazing into his brain. He’s jealous, distantly, of every man who’s touched Richie, but at the moment, the bitter sting of resentment is only seasoning his burning arousal. 

“So, yeah,” Richie says with a self-conscious laugh. “The set was shitty, needless to say, but as far as, like, weird kinky stuff… Not bad. And, obviously, as soon as I got off stage…” He trails off, but he turns his head to meet Eddie’s eyes. The smile falls from his face. 

The eye contact is deafening, somehow, magnetized. It blurs all of Eddie’s other senses. 

Richie is the one to finally look away, and he says, “Well, Eds, I think it’s that time of the night where you need to leave so I can jerk off and go to bed.”

Eddie looks at him across the floor. They’re facing each other, their feet almost touching where they’re sprawled out. His pulse pounds in his ears and, regrettably, throbs in his dick. “Yeah, I guess so.” His eyes flicker to Richie’s crotch, but he can’t tell whether he’s hard just by looking. 

Richie catches it, and when he returns his gaze to his face, he’s smirking. “If you’re in the same boat, we could take different rooms. Don’t want you to drive home all worked up.” 

Eddie swallows hard. “Um. I mean. If we don’t touch each other?” ( _Fuck_ , what is he saying?)

Richie’s smile widens, incredulous. “Loophole?” 

Eddie nods and reaches to adjust his thickening cock through his jeans. Richie’s eyes fix on his movement, his mouth open, jaw slack. Incredibly, he licks his lips. “Yeah, could be a loophole,” Eddie says. “But I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the agreement…” 

“We’ve been so good though,” Richie whines. He snaps his head back up to look Eddie in the eye. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman, I know this is our first date and all, but… Maybe I wouldn’t even look at you.” He covers his eyes with his hand but after only a second peeks through his splayed fingers. 

Eddie chuckles. “Yeah, convincing. Um. Are you hard?” 

“Getting there,” Richie says, palming himself through his clothes. 

Officially surrendering, Eddie says, “Show me.”

“Fuck yeah,” Richie breathes, fumbling to unbuckle his belt. He shimmies his pants and underwear down his thighs, his thick cock nestled against the hair on his belly. Richie gets a hand around himself, gives a few rough strokes that are probably for show. Eddie can _hear_ the friction. Richie’s upper lip twitches. “Well, I showed you mine.”

Eddie feels on fire as he tugs at the button of his jeans and rips down the zipper. He arches his back enough to lift his hips off the floor and finally draw out his dick, fully erect from the last few seconds; the sight of Richie worked with dizzying efficiency. 

“You’re so hard,” Richie whispers, his eyes wide. His hand is still on the base of his own cock now, but when Eddie starts moving, Richie carefully matches his pace. 

That has a real possibility of making Eddie lose his mind, so he keeps going, seeing how far he can push it. He brings his left hand to wrap around the root while thumbing at the head with his right, and Richie follows his lead.

“Shit, Richie,” Eddie breathes, his heart pounding as Richie’s eyes burn into him, laser-focused with all the attention he usually lacks, as if he saves it up for _this_. 

“Fuck, my mouth is watering just looking at you,” Richie says. “You get so wet. Ugh, god, that _sound_ ,” Richie groans, at the wet _squelch_ of pre-come as Eddie fucks into his fist. “Can I have some? Just to get things going over here?” He holds out his palm and Eddie stares incredulously. 

“No, what the fuck?” 

“Okay, selfish. Won’t even take pity on me and my dry dick.” Richie licks his palm a couple times, before spitting into it. 

“You’re so weird,” Eddie huffs. “That’s so gross.”

Richie smiles wide; he throws his head back, the tendons in his neck bared. “ _Ohh_ -kay, that’s doing it for me. Can you, like, call me a pervert or something?” 

Eddie laughs a little, breathless and wrecked. “No, fuck off.” 

“That’s good, too,” Richie says, still grinning, but it turns into more of a grimace, his facial muscles twitching as he twists one hand over the head of his cock, grinding over sensitive skin with his palm. 

He’s stopped copying Eddie’s motions now, and as hot as that was, this is another jolt of heat shattering Eddie’s body, seeing Richie touch himself the way he wants to. 

“Fuck, Eddie, come on,” Richie grunts, “I wanna see you, I’m so close. That’s all I need.” 

At that, his competitive streak flares up, and Eddie sets his jaw, squeezes his dick, and says, “You first.” 

Richie’s eyes go wide and he drops his head back against the seat of the chair, groaning. “God, you’re insane. Fuck.” His hips jerk up into his hand and his legs fall open, knees spread wide and vulnerable. “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, come on, Richie, come on.” 

His breathing is ragged, his head tipped back, eyes closed. 

“Come on, come for me, I wanna see it. Just for me.” 

He does, with a gasp, spilling into his palm. It leaks between his fingers, as he strokes himself through it, and drips onto his stomach where his shirt is rucked up. 

“ _Fuck_ , Richie. You’re so fucking hot.” 

At the sound of his name, Richie opens his eyes, locking into blazing eye contact with Eddie. His cheeks are flushed pink, lips red and wet. His body is soft and loose now, a puddle on the floor, slumped against the edge of the couch. And Eddie is really into that, no surprise to anyone, Richie relaxed and fucked-out and content and used. For a wild moment, Eddie considers fucking him right now, on the floor, Richie’s body lax and overstimulated beneath him. Or if that’s too much work, just sliding into his mouth, coaxing open his jaw. 

The idea of it is more than enough. Eddie grits his teeth, his toes curling into the carpet; as he comes, distantly he hears Richie murmur, “Yeah, that’s it, baby. Feels good, huh? _Fuck_ , look at you.” And he doesn’t have the bandwidth to process that right now, or how it makes him feel. 

Once he’s past his peak, Eddie unclenches his jaw; his teeth ache. He relaxes his legs, letting his knees fall apart. “Wow,” he says to the silent room. It smells like sweat and salt. 

And Richie says, grinning lazily, “Yeah, wow. Pretty hot.” 

But that wasn’t the tone of Eddie’s ‘wow’ so he elaborates, “We had sex. That’s what that was. Right after we said we weren’t going to.” 

“Well, yeah, but…” Richie ducks his head, hunching his shoulders. “I think it’s probably fine. It’s just a formality thing.” 

“No, no, I want to do this right.” Eddie tucks himself back into his underwear, grimacing because he’s still wet and sensitive. 

“But Eddie, I think, like, our hearts are in the right place, and we’re trying our best. That’s the important thing.” 

“Is this ‘our best,’ Richie? Really?” Eddie snaps. “Like we couldn’t even not fuck each other for a month. We gave up after, like, four hours.” 

“Let’s start the month over again,” Richie says, and then grins when he adds, “And again, and again.” 

Eddie laughs before he can stifle it. “Richie, I’m serious. Are you in this with me?” 

“Yeah, I am,” Richie says after a moment, perfectly serious. He doesn’t meet Eddie’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t wanna fuck this up. Again.”

“I just think– part of our problem is that we get carried away and between the two of us, we have… actually less self-restraint than we individually possess. Know what I mean? We are lesser than the sum of our parts. My already-limited self-control gets canceled out by yours when we come together.”

Richie waggles his eyebrows. “Come together, eh?” Then his face immediately drops into a sober expression and he says, “Sorry, you walked into that one. But, uh.” He rakes a hand through his hair, then seems to remember it’s coated in come and withdraws it, grimacing. “Um. Yeah, fuck, you’re right. You’re really smart, I’m just, like, waiting for my brain to come back online, but your mental refractory period is impressive, as always.”

“Take your time,” Eddie says, smiling a little at the praise. The thing is, Richie is actually the smart one, but he doesn’t seem to know it. Eddie will eventually tell him, but he plans to continue floating by on this assumption a while longer. 

“Okay, yes,” Richie says then, and it seems like he’s really concentrating. His eyes are narrowed behind his askew glasses, and his mouth pinched. It’s so cute that Eddie’s chest swells. “This was a mistake.” (It’s a funny thing to say when his dick is still out, slowly going down against his thigh, come smeared on his stomach.) “And I have a bad habit where I just go along with absolutely whatever you want. So… I’ll be more mindful of that in the future.”

“Okay, thanks, Richie. And I’ll… work on impulse-control or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Richie echoes, smiling lazily. Then with a put-upon sigh he hauls himself to sit upright and pulls his pants back up. After some deliberation, he wipes what’s left on his hand onto his t-shirt. “Okay, I’m going to clean up… Do you want to stay over? Sleepover? In my big cozy bed?” Eddie hesitates, and Richie adds, “Clothed? Like good Christian teens. Some sexually-charged fully-clothed bed-sharing.” 

Eddie frowns and says, “I think we shouldn’t.” 

“Yeah, right,” Richie says, all trace of humor gone. “Sorry, yeah, I was joking around. Sorry. I’m taking this seriously, I promise. I’ll get the guest bedroom ready for you.” Richie hops up to his feet, shooting a reassuring smile at Eddie. 

“Great, thanks, Richie,” Eddie says. “I’m gonna clean up and… Can I borrow pajamas?” 

“Yeah, I’ll dig through my dirty laundry and find something suitably grody for you.” Richie turns to leave the room as Eddie chuckles, but before he disappears around the corner, he turns back and says, “That was a joke, again. I will bring you some fresh, clean pajamas that won’t activate you like a horny sleeper cell. Can’t have anymore of _this_.” 

Richie makes a complicated gesture that starts with him pointing at Eddie, then himself, then miming jerking off over his crotch while he thrusts his hips. With no further theatrics, he spins on his heel and leaves the room. 

In his absence, Eddie chuckles and lets his head thunk back to the floor. He needs to clean himself up, but that can wait another moment. He needs to do a lot of things, but it can all wait a moment. He’s afraid of letting this feel easy, of falling into old patterns and habits. But Eddie’s never really had anything that felt easy, effortless like this. Maybe some indulgence now and then won’t hurt them. They’re aware of their problems now— _very_ aware of them—the way their dynamic can spiral out of control if they’re not careful about it. After tonight, at least, he’s confident that Richie cares enough to put in the work. They’ll probably fuck up again but maybe they’ll get a little better at dealing with it each time. 

Then something flashes in his peripheral vision and a folded t-shirt and sweatpants fall heavily onto his face. Eddie lets out a soft, surprised, “Oof,” as he hears Richie cackling. 

“Bedtime!” Richie sings out, his voice already distant as he leaves the room.

“Okay, okay,” Eddie grumbles as he pulls himself to his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … they can have a little bit of narrative resolution, as a treat. But not too much. Just a little. 
> 
> (They’re gonna be _fine_. Trust me.) 
> 
> I really loved writing this, and I’ve been so happy that others have enjoyed it, too! Thanks for reading! I'm on tumblr @[skeilig](https://skeilig.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi.


End file.
